


demand an encore

by Emamel



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: And literally everyone knows but him, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Being an Idiot, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, M/M, Memory Magic, Mix of canons, Mutual Pining, Not Really Character Death, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion, no beta we die like renfri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:01:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 51,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23222920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emamel/pseuds/Emamel
Summary: He looked up, and a man stood before him. Geralt hadn't heard him approach. That was the first sign there was something odd.The second was the faint but still noxious smell of poison that clung to his fingers, just strong enough to make out over the spiced perfume he wore. And under all of that was a richer smell, as familiar as Geralt's own scent, because it was Geralt's own. Or a witcher's, at least.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 821
Kudos: 3574
Collections: Subscriptions, best of the witcher





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks, I'm here with more angst. For those of you that want the authentic experience of this fic, to really get into the mindset I was in when the majority of it was written, don't worry, I have a handy guide! Just follow these simple steps:
> 
> 1 - go to work on the late shift. Realise this means you are also on call overnight, and have to work the morning shift the next day. Cry a little  
> 2 - be on shift for a total of 21 hours. You may set aside 5 hours of this time for sleeping, but you must be woken up at least 4 times by the phone ringing  
> 3 - go home and take a brief, unsatisfying nap  
> 4 - listen to the amazing devil's entire discography twice through with your eyes closed, a mug of fruit tea in one hand and an unopened bottle of very cheap gin in the other  
> 5 - pour a shot of gin into the now cold tea and down the lot  
> 6 - write like the world is ending because it kind of feels like it is
> 
> And here we are! That was all last week, and things have only gotten worse, but I have made the executive decision that if I'm going to be crying anyway, at least I should get to pick what I'm crying over.
> 
> Also - there are two timelines here, and I jump back and forth between them. You're a smart bunch, and it's one less timeline than the show gave us, but if you guys think it isn't clear what's happening when, let me know and I'll find a way around it. Don't try and tie it in with book/game/series timelines, I played a little fast and loose with canon, by which I mean I read too much on the wiki, couldn't make it all fit, and cherrypicked.
> 
> And finally, Jenny - you know what you did. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, and don't let me do this again

Ciri's training has started coming on in leaps and bounds now that they've finally reached Kaer Morhen. The journey - which should have taken them no more than at week at a leisurely pace - had been complicated by spies, soldiers, Geralt's insistence that they avoid all signs of human habitation, Jaskier's refusal to do so, and the still-healing ghoul bite on his thigh. Which meant that Geralt had managed to give Ciri a little head start before they arrived, though his movement had been restricted and his reflexes still dulled - slowed by healing and the decoctions he had to drink every third day to keep the wound from festering as it kept trying to do. He had wished for something stronger than the potions he kept in his pouch, but he'd never learnt how to make them as well as…

Besides; he'd realised years ago that wishing brought nothing but trouble.

Now, though, he watches as Ciri cackles merrily, scrambling up to Eskel's shoulders to try and snatch the waterskin from his hand. Even the breaks they take are used as a chance to learn, to practice, to grow stronger, faster, sharper. Eskel lets her claim her prize before twisting his torso suddenly, dipping one shoulder so low that she goes tumbling off and lands right in his arms. He sets her carefully on her feet, and she reclaims her practice sword, still giggling as she takes up her stance.

At Geralt's side, Jaskier plucks thoughtfully at the strings of his lute. It is clear that his mind isn't on the music, but Geralt doesn't want to guess at what he might be thinking of to put such a look on his face. He would have known, once, but it was different then. They were both different then.

He looks away, back down at the shirt in his hands, suddenly aware that he had been staring. So many of his clothes are worn almost completely through, but at least now he has a chance to mend them without worrying that at any moment they may have to break camp and make a run for it. 

On his other side, Lambert hums, face creased in thought.

"She fights too much like you," he says eventually. Even without looking, Geralt knows that Jaskier bristles like a cat with its fur rubbed the wrong way, so offended on his behalf.

"Hang on, I'm sorry, just what is that supposed to mean?" He asks in the sudden quiet, fingers unmoving on the strings. He doesn't sound sorry in the slightest. Geralt huffs softly through his nose - he doesn't understand Jaskier's animosity at all. It's a fair statement. His experience with teaching is severely limited, and his memories of his own early days of training long since faded by time and the overwhelming changes that came after the trials. Everything from before was little more than a blur. He'd done his best to do right by Ciri, but it’s clear to see that he had been lacking as her sole instructor.

It’s strange to hear Jaskier defending him against Lambert so seriously. They used to team up against him.

"Calm down - it's an observation, not a criticism. She moves like she's twice the size she is, swings like she's expecting strength there that she doesn't have, and that'll be dangerous for her in the long run. She's fast, and she's damned clever too - she'd be better off using that to her advantage than trying to copy our White Wolf."

Geralt cuts a sharp look across at Lambert who, predictably, ignores him. He nudges Geralt's ribs with a pointed elbow.

"Shame that Viper of yours isn't here, eh Geralt? She'd be much better suited to his style, don't you think?"

It isn't the first time Lambert has tried to rile him up like this; Geralt is, unfortunately, long used to it. His lip curls slightly in the face of Lambert's sly, unconcerned smile - the back of his neck burns under Jaskier's curious gaze. The bard hasn't asked yet, but if this keeps up, it will only be a matter of time.

A growl rumbles, so low in his chest that he isn't sure Jaskier would be able to hear it, even sat as close as he is. Lambert holds up his hands in surrender.

Perhaps the worst part is, Geralt knows Lambert is right, just as well as he knows that it doesn't matter how right he is. There's nothing they can do about it now.  
  
  


They met in the middle of a storm, and if Geralt were prone to flights of fancy, he might have taken it as an omen. He was sure that Jaskier had. Geralt had helped himself to another drink, and was chewing mechanically at the woody vegetables floating in salty water that passed itself off as soup, when he felt the shift. The air before him moved, something charged; like the lightning outside had crept beneath the door to find him.

He looked up, and a man stood before him. Geralt hadn't heard him approach. That was the first sign there was something odd.

The second was the faint but still noxious smell of poison that clung to his fingers, just strong enough to make out over the spiced perfume he wore. And under all of that was a richer smell, as familiar as Geralt's own scent, because it _was_ Geralt's own. Or a witcher's, at least.

"Never thought I'd run into a member of the illustrious School of the Wolf this far south," he said, in a voice that dipped and crested like every word was a poem, a revelation; emotion, or something like it, rang clear as a bell. Geralt blinked in surprise. He scanned the man's lithe frame - he wore twin short swords, one of silver and one of steel. His armour was light, designed for ease of movement and not for taking heavy blows, and there, just faintly beneath the open collar of his shirt, Geralt caught the outline of his medallion.

"I'm not planning on staying long," Geralt said finally. "I had business here, but that'll be done tomorrow. I'll not take any of your work from you, Viper."

The man laughed at that, and slid into the seat opposite Geralt, who didn't protest.

"Oh, I'm not worried about that - my contract is complete and I am once more numbered among the free men. I'll be on my way soon enough as well. And, please; it's Jaskier. Viper sounds so cold, don't you agree?" Despite himself, Geralt felt his mouth tip into a smile.

"We _are_ witchers," he said pointedly. Then, "Geralt."

" _Geralt,_ " Jaskier said, delighted, curling the syllables of his name around his tongue until it sounded utterly foreign to Geralt, who was far more accustomed to people spitting it in his direction. "Well, Geralt, where is it you're heading after this?"

Geralt shrugged, just the barest shift of his shoulders, examining the ale in his cup distastefully. There was something floating in it.

"Back on the Path," he said, and it was the truth only in that he had no clue where he'd be going next. He lived from one contract to the next, with little care for what came between them - such was the life. Jaskier blew out his lips in an unimpressed noise like a child.

"Not going to stay and explore the city? I know a few places that are happy to have the patronage of a witcher, if you were looking to relax after your… business. Oh, ah, I wouldn't do that, if I were you," he interrupted himself suddenly, planting a hand over the rim of Geralt's cup when he raised it to take a drink. It left his fingers scant inches from Geralt's mouth. In a show of remarkable restraint, Geralt only clenched his jaw and lifted an eyebrow. Lambert would have had a knife in his hand if he'd tried the same. Or Geralt's teeth. "I don't mean to alarm you, but I'm fairly sure I saw that unsavoury gent at the bar slip something in there before our fair landlady poured your drink."

Geralt didn't look up towards the bar; didn't have to. He knew exactly which unsavoury gent Jaskier meant.

"Guess I'll be wrapping things up tonight then," he grumbled, and sniffed cautiously at the drink when Jaskier lowered his hand. Even when he focused, he could barely catch the scent; across the table, Jaskier inhaled deeply, face pinched in a thoughtful squint.

"Well the good news is, it wouldn't have killed you," Jaskier said brightly after a moment. "Although you'd have had a headache and the shits for a good few days. Not that I suppose _he_ knows that."

Geralt tipped his head in thanks - his knowledge of toxins was strictly limited to his potions. He'd heard rumours that the School of the Viper put a great deal more emphasis on such things, but it was interesting to see it put into practice. There weren't many poisons that had much of an effect on a witcher - or the monsters they hunted - so he'd never taken the time to much concern himself with them.

Just how good was Jaskier's sense of smell, he wondered. Geralt had barely been able to isolate the scent, never mind identify it. But then, judging by his eyes - round pupils, struggling to focus on Geralt in the gloom almost as much as a human would - sacrifices were made when enhancing his senses. 

"Well if you must conclude your visit tonight, would you be good enough to take it outside? I wouldn't want you to give this fine establishment an excuse to refuse to serve witchers in the future. I'm rather fond of it." Jaskier smiled lightly, but his cornflower blue eyes were perfectly serious, trained on Geralt's face. It was a reasonable enough request. Places that would take a witcher's coin as happily as anyone else's were few and far between - he didn't blame Jaskier for not wanting to give this one up. He nodded and stood to leave.

Jaskier caught his arm as he walked by. His grip was far firmer than his frame would have led Geralt to believe - but then, he was a mutant too. His head tipped back to display the inviting line of his throat, framed by waves of soft brown hair. Geralt swallowed hard.

"Take care, Geralt," he murmured. His mouth barely moved with the words, so soft that no human in Geralt's place would have heard them. 

"And you, Jaskier," he replied with a small smile, and when he walked away, it was an effort not to rub at the lingering point of warmth on his arm.

  
  
  
  


Three days later, Jaskier caught up to him on the road heading northeast on feet almost as quiet as his heartbeat, and that same warmth bloomed bright in Geralt's chest.

  
  
  
  


"But _why?_ " Ciri groans, draping herself artlessly across Geralt's back and hiding her face between his shoulder blades. When he's sat like this, hunched forward over his bowl, she's the perfect height for it, still small for her age and unlikely to get much taller if her mother was any indication.

"Because I said so," Geralt says, and winces even before Lambert starts howling with laughter. He sounds just like Vesemir used to, his inflection a perfect imitation - he shuts his eyes and resigns himself to the inevitable mockery. Eskel and Lambert repeat it back and forth across the table through their laughter, lowering their voices further and further into an absurd caricature of Geralt's tone. 

Ciri giggles against his back, her sour mood melting away like snow beneath a spring morning. She's laughed more these past few days as she's finally started to settle and open up than in all the weeks they were on the road. Part of it is that the threat of Nilfgaardian patrols catching up to them is no longer a constant weight on her mind, he suspects, but he hopes there's more to it than that. He hopes she can be comfortable - be _happy_ here.

"I don't get it," Jaskier stage whispers to her, one hand cupped around his mouth as though that might muffle the sound. His smile is wicked, and his eyes glimmer.

"Me neither," she whispers back, and she's still laughing.

"Must be a witcher thing," Jaskier nods sagely, and Geralt just barely stops himself from flinching. Once, Jaskier would have counted himself among them. Once, Jaskier would have noticed how Geralt's scent soured at the reminder and known exactly what it meant. Now, he only flashes a curious smile his way, and brushes the hair from his eyes. It's getting long again, after almost a month at the keep, and weeks travelling before. Almost as long as Geralt remembers it being. 

He wants to reach out, tuck it back, as he thoughtlessly would have. He wants to cut it all off so he doesn't have to look at it and be tempted any more.

Eskel sobers, watching him softly. He doesn't understand, not truly, but more than anyone else he knows what this means to Geralt. More than anyone else, he remembers the aftermath, remembers how Geralt was that first winter, when he thought -

Ciri squirms her way onto the bench and leans against his side, opening her eyes wide and batting her lashes at him. She still isn't used to the concept of being refused anything she asks for; something that isn't helped by Jaskier, Eskel, and Lambert, who all insist on crumbling as soon as she turns that face on them. Geralt might have thought that the days she spent after the fall of Cintra would have taught her that life outside of a palace is very different to the life of a crown princess - and perhaps it had, for a time. But now she's realised that she can once again get away with a great deal, and isn't above using it to her advantage.

He's almost proud. If only he'd been this good at wrapping Vesemir around his little finger when he was her age. 

"Did you get hay in your eye helping with Roach this morning?" He asks, and takes a big bite of bread, deliberately reaching around her and drawing her tight against his side as he does. Her nose wrinkles in disgust as he chews noisily beside her ear.

"Ugh! No! Stop, Geralt, you're so disgusting!" Slippery as a fish, she twists in his grasp; but Geralt is good at keeping his grip on things that are difficult to hold onto, and doesn't relent. Her shrieks in his ear are piercing, but they sound so joyfully horrified that he tolerates it with nothing more than rolled eyes. 

" _Geralt!_ How come I can't come with you?”

“Because, rascal, the trail is still covered in snow deeper than you are tall, you don’t know the mountain, and you would freeze to death before we got you to the bottom. Trust me, you don’t want to come with us.” Ciri sticks her tongue out at him in a perfect display of courtly decorum and maturity. Behind her, Jaskier sticks his tongue out as well, because he never did act his age even when he knew his age. Geralt turns his face away from the both of them so they can’t see the way he’s beginning to smile. Lambert sees it though, and kicks him beneath the table.

Ciri isn’t the only that has been smiling more and more. Geralt’s face aches with it sometimes, no longer accustomed to the expression; the muscle memory is long gone, and these days he is slower to laugh than he ever was before.

“Eskel said you used to help Vesemir when you were my age,” she says, and Eskel sinks slightly in his seat. It’s hard to place too much blame on him, though - like all children, Ciri has a remarkable capacity for remembering things everyone else would rather she didn’t, and listening in on conversations that everyone else agrees she shouldn’t. No doubt Eskel had been trying to tell her about one of the many times they had all made arses of themselves, falling over each other to try and impress Vesemir, not realising just how closely she was paying attention to all the details.

“That’s true,” Geralt agrees, and doesn’t move in the slightest when she shoves at him. “But you see, the difference is that when I was your age I was about twice your size, and halfway through the trials. And I had lived here considerably longer than a month, so I knew the mountain about as well as you know the back of your hand.” He pauses, and considers. “ _And_ Vesemir never let us help when the snow was this thick and a storm was brewing.”

“Doesn’t matter if I know the mountain,” Ciri grumbles, finally giving up and slumping, half against his side and half in his lap. “I never get lost, not anywhere.”

“It isn’t just about finding your way, lass,” Eskel says, clearly keen to make up for his earlier misstep. “The mountain itself is dangerous, if you don’t know what it is you’re looking out for.”

“And you wouldn’t be able to see the danger above the snow anyway,” Lambert chuckles, reaching across the table to ruffle her hair - much shorter now, after Jaskier had taken to it with Geralt’s knife. He had despaired of Geralt, who until then had just about managed to persuade Ciri to exchange her blue cloak for a muddied brown and wear one of his old shirts, hastily adjusted until it looked like a thrice-hand-me-down that a youngest child might inherit. It wasn’t until Jaskier pointed out that they were looking for a young girl matching Ciri’s description, and not a boy with hair that may have been the same colour as the princess’s beneath a layer of grime that she finally agreed.

Geralt has never been one for subterfuge, though - never seen the point in trying to hide who he is. His eyes give him away, even if he were to conceal his swords and medallion. He can’t pass unnoticed through crowds without a deep hood and a lot of luck.

Jaskier, on the other hand, could live in a city for weeks and even his lovers would never know what he was unless he chose to tell them. 

“Even Geralt took a few tumbles when he wasn’t paying enough attention,” Eskel says, and Lambert’s answering smile is wide enough that Geralt feels the beginnings of dread stir in his stomach. “Used to try and show off for -”

His mouth shuts with a click.

Witchers can’t blush - their hearts are too slow, their blood too sluggish in their veins. Knowing this doesn’t make Geralt’s cheeks feel any cooler. Carefully, deliberately, he focuses on his meal, and doesn’t meet Ciri’s gaze, no matter how hard she tries to wiggle around and get in his eyeline. He knows that Jaskier is looking between him and Eskel; that he is trying to put the pieces together even though he has only the barest shape of the puzzle he’s working on.

It is Vesemir that saves him from further scrutiny - he shoulders the door open, and looks around them all with a heavy disappointment that would have had them shrivelling in their seats with shame as children.

“Not ready yet?” He asks evenly, shaking his head. They can’t risk taking the horses down the paths, and it’s a few days on foot to the base of the mountain, and then another half day again before they reach the nearest village. It’s never a pleasant or easy task, but it’s unfortunately necessary - with the addition of two unexpected mouths to feed, there’s no way to make the stores last until the thaw. Geralt jostles Ciri against his side.

“Hear that, rascal? I need to get going.” Her face is stony, but she reluctantly lets go of him a moment later and slides back down onto the bench. Mutinously, she takes what’s left of his breakfast and starts eating it, as though daring him to say something.

He only shakes his head and brushes her fringe away from her forehead in a gesture he can just barely remember from when he was a child, still with hair too short to tie back.

As he turns to move past Jaskier, the bard holds out a hand towards him - to stop him, to slow him down, to press against his chest and keep him in place, but Geralt reaches back instinctively and grips it in his own. There are new callouses, no longer on Jaskier's palm but on his fingertips from years of plucking at fine strings - and it hurts, that Geralt used to know every plane of those hands. He swallows, and squeezes Jaskier’s hand once before letting go in an attempt to mask his mistake.

Jaskier watches him, eyes a barely-there strip of blue around wide black. They haven’t changed, at least - he knows those eyes, knows them in every season, every shadow, in every thought and emotion that lights them.

“Take care, Geralt,” he murmurs. Geralt nods curtly, because it’s all he can muster when he’s pinned in place by that gaze.

Lambert chortles.

“Oh don’t worry about that - we’ll take care of him for you,” he says, and whips around when Vesemir clucks his tongue.

“Eskel and I will,” he says - he is impassive even in the face of Lambert’s spluttering indignation. “You will remain here with the bard and the princess.” Eskel snorts, and has to quickly dodge the blow that Lambert aims at him. Long since used to them, Vesemir doesn’t bother to interfere - Geralt sees the small, satisfied smile on his face when Ciri starts to laugh at them tussling like boys.

“But _why?_ ” Lambert groans; Vesemir’s answering smile is all sharp canines and vicious delight.

“Because I said so.”

  
  
  
  


Sometimes they would travel in the same direction for a couple of days before they separated, and sometimes they spent months together on the road, sharing contracts and meals and blankets. It was - it was a change. Geralt hadn’t worked alongside another witcher since he left Kaer Morhen as a young man; hadn’t travelled beside someone that could talk as much or as well as Jaskier. He was an authority on almost every subject under the sun - or so it sometimes seemed to Geralt, who preferred to hum with quiet amusement and the occasional encouragement to prove he truly was still listening. 

Geralt would laugh; slowly, reluctantly, and Jaskier would beam to hear it, until they reached the crossroads and parted ways. And as they separated, Geralt felt as though he took a breath and held it, and held it, and held it.

Held it until he heard the familiar call of his name across a square, or from a balcony he sheltered beneath, and it would all come tumbling out all at once.

  
  
  
  


They’re three days late returning to the keep. Ciri throws herself recklessly down the steps, and slips two from the bottom. Geralt’s arms are already open - he catches her as she topples forward and flings her over his shoulder like a sack of flour, hardly breaking his stride. It’s too cold for her to stay in the courtyard for any length of time.

And from a balcony above him, he hears Jaskier shout his name and Geralt can breathe, can breathe, can breathe again.

  
  
  
  
  


“Do you ever wonder-” Jaskier started, one leg swinging idly from his perch on a low branch. His head was tipped back to rest against the bark, and his eyes were fixed on the sky but Geralt wasn’t naive enough to think that meant he didn’t know Geralt’s every movement. Above them the leaves rustled faintly, and the wind brought with it the scent of early autumn - it would be cold once the sun sunk below the horizon, but for now they still clung to the lingering warmth of the day.

“No,” Geralt interrupted, and bit his grin back at Jaskier’s half-hearted glare. He managed to keep it contained for a few seconds that stretched out between them, before they both broke and started to snicker like children.

“Ah, of course, you’ve never wondered about a thing in all your years,” Jaskier said. “How foolish of me to forget! But I suppose that leaves it up to me to carry the conversation once again - why Geralt, my very dearest of friends, have you ever wondered what course you might have chosen for your life had you not been destined to travel the Path of a witcher?” Before Geralt could answer, Jaskier lowered his voice to reply to himself.

“Well no, my good friend Jaskier, for I have never wondered a single thing in my life - my mind has known only surety and silence since the moment I was born up until this very second. But do tell me, oh Jaskier; why is it you ask?”

Geralt shook his head, but by then he had given up on building a fire to watch Jaskier’s performance. As himself, he threw his arms so wide with each point that it was nothing short of a miracle - or a witcher’s reflexes - that kept him from tumbling to the ground. As Geralt, he folded himself down, with his shoulders up around his ears and chin tucked into his chest; his brow furrowed, and his mouth pushed into an exaggerated pout. He could only hope that Jaskier didn’t really see him like that.

“Why, Geralt, I’m so glad we could have this conversation, the two of us!”

Jaskier slumped suddenly back and sighed heavily; he sounded so unlike himself that Geralt almost had to shake his head and check with silver to make sure it truly was him.

“I think about it all the time,” Jaskier confessed softly. "Every day until I think I must surely be going mad from it." He covered his eyes with one hand, and left the other to trail by his side; Geralt’s gaze was drawn to it, and he found he couldn’t look away. With his sleeves pushed carelessly to his elbows and his bracers stowed away in his pack - trusting that one of them would hear any approach in time to run for them should anyone be foolish enough to try to ambush two witchers - Geralt could trace the veins that ran the length of his forearms, could watch each motion of his elegant fingers too easily. Next to Geralt's bulk he looked almost dainty; but those hands were strong enough to crush a man's neck, and he was clever enough that he never had to.

“And what would you do?” Geralt asked finally, unnerved by the silence. Jaskier’s heart thudded beneath his ribs, a steady beat so strong that Geralt fancied he could feel it rattling in his bones and ringing in his ears.

"I don't know - isn't that funny? I've thought about it so long and so often, but I still don't have the faintest idea."

It wasn't that Geralt _hadn't_ thought about it, from time to time. He wondered sometimes, what it would be like to be able to walk into a town and not find that he had to immediately justify his presence or be chased out with stones and whatever improvised weapons the folk could scrounge. Thought about finding a place that he liked ~~someone he loved~~ and settling down for longer than the time it took to find whatever beast had been tormenting locals. It wasn't that he hated the Path, but he could admit that he had occasionally wasted away long hours of travelling dreaming of something - anything - different.

Such dreams were as dangerous as they were useless, though. He couldn't afford to let himself be distracted by hopeless wishing, or let his mind wander when he needed to be alert. It didn't matter what he could or couldn't have been - he was a witcher. That was all there was to it.

Jaskier should know that - ought to know better than to let himself get caught up in all his daydreams. And yet, Geralt still found himself moving to sit beneath the tree to better listen.

"I don't mind travelling," Jaskier mused, and the hand hanging limp at his side brushed carelessly over Geralt's hair. Geralt didn't move, didn't bat it away, so those clever fingers kept smoothing over the crown of his head; an almost absent minded gesture. He would have had to be as blind as a human not to notice just how tactile Jaskier was, how much he loved to touch everything he could get his hands on just to feel the texture of it. Somehow, Geralt had never quite considered that he too might fall victim to it.

"But I think I should like to have somewhere I could return to, somewhere I could rely on still being there, no matter how much time had passed. By the sea, perhaps - do you know, I've never actually been to the coast? I always thought I would like it there, though."

Geralt hummed and allowed his eyes to close at the thought - his ears were sharp, the woods they had stopped in were relatively peaceful, and he trusted that between him and Jaskier, there were few threats that would dare make themselves known.

"I've been," he said after a moment. "On jobs. You'd like it. There are mermaids."

"Oh how well you think you know me! But I'll have you know I'm not so shallow as all that, and I could be content if I never saw a single mermaid as long as I had fine enough company on land."

It shouldn't have made Geralt's chest ache all the way up to his throat to think of it - he knew how much Jaskier appreciated _fine company_. They had travelled together on and off for years, and his flirtatious nature was hardly subtle. Every town they came across that was large enough and desperate enough to support two witchers was also large enough to have a variety of men and women that caught Jaskier's eye and hand and tongue, though he had been somewhat more reserved of late. It only made sense that even in his imaginings of an idyllic life, the same would hold true.

"Hm. And just how would you pay for such fine company in this life of yours? Don't tell me you would be a fisherman."

Jaskier scoffed and swatted at him.

"Pay? And when have you ever known me to have to pay for the company I keep? Is this your idea of a joke, my dear, because I've always said that Roach has a far better and more timely sense of humour than you!" In that respect, they couldn’t have been more different. Usually, Geralt preferred to seek a brothel when he was in the mood to share his bed - there were fewer expectations when both parties knew exactly what it was they wanted from the transaction. When Geralt didn't have to worry that his partner for the night had sought him out as a way of searching for thrills that their day to day life didn't offer, or that they liked the idea of danger, or of having some tall tale to tell of the time they bedded a witcher. Jaskier could pass for a human easily enough - a beautiful, personable human, at that - that he rarely had to concern himself with such things.

"Not at all - but I suppose you would want to keep your company fed and clothed somehow, at least, and that's not even thinking of the gifts and trinkets you might like to spoil them with, so I ask again; how would you pay for such fine company?"

Jaskier didn’t answer for a moment, apparently deep in thought. He curled Geralt’s hair around his fingers and hummed, low and soft, until Geralt started to wonder if he would ever answer.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right - I should like to spoil them,” he said at last, and there was such a wistful note in his voice that Geralt’s hackles immediately rose. Jaskier only ever spoke like that when there was someone that he already had his eye on - Geralt had suspected that he had a paramour hidden away somewhere for a long while, in Novigrad perhaps, or Cidaris. Of course, he denied it the sole time Geralt could bring himself to ask - had stared at him with disbelief writ plain across his face before laughing and clapping Geralt on the shoulder. And it wasn’t that Geralt didn’t want to believe him; but there had been something off in his voice, and they had been friends long enough now that he could always tell when Jaskier was hiding something. “Perhaps I would be a scholar - a historian? I’ve been around long enough to have seen a good deal of it, travelled enough of the continent. A poet, maybe, or a teacher?”

Geralt thought about it.

“A storyteller,” he said. “You love the sound of your own voice well enough.” Jaskier laughed at that, and swung his foot back to try and kick at Geralt’s shoulder, only to be met by air as Geralt leant quickly away, anticipating the move.

“And what sort of stories should I tell?” He asked, settling back. 

“I don’t know,” Geralt said with a little shrug, shifting against the tree as he tried to subtly press his head back against Jaskier’s hand and grinning slightly to himself when he found it. “They’re your stories, not mine.”

  
  
  
  


As soon as he sees Lambert, he knows.

Mouth curling into a snarl, he sets Ciri down as gently as he can and storms forward - he doesn’t pause to greet his old friend, only hooks a hand around the neck of his shirt and drags him away, ignoring Eskel’s shouts for him to wait, to calm down. He marches through the empty hallways until he can no longer hear anyone - not their footsteps, or their breathing, or their words - and then lets go of Lambert like he’s been scalded.

There’s so much of him that wants to be furious - wants to feel rage bubbling in his chest so that he can spit his accusations and have them land like acid, but he can’t. He’s exhausted from the journey; from hurrying recklessly back along unstable rock faces because they were already late returning, and he didn’t want to wait another day. There's nothing left of him to be angry.

"I'm sorry, Geralt, I really am," Lambert mutters, and he hangs his head so low that Geralt can't help but believe him. "Having him here, it's - I was careless, I didn't realise he was listening. The lass asked me about you, about how you used to be when you were younger, and well, she's not stupid Geralt, she knew I was hiding something. I swear I didn't tell her any details, didn't even mention a name, but she - and he was listening, your Viper, you remember how sneaky he was. I swear I didn't know."

Geralt believes him, because he has to. Because if he doesn't then he'll -

"How much did he hear?" He asks, and if it sounds like he has all the world resting heavy on his shoulders, then at least Lambert may start to get some idea of just what it is he's done.

"Not much," Lambert says - it's not as reassuring as he probably thinks it is. "Only that you travelled with a witcher from a different School for a while, and that we met him a few times."

Slowly, like he's breaking from a trance, Geralt nods. Every muscle in his neck screams with the movement. That is - well, it could be worse, he supposes. He knows that Jaskier will have questions; that he has been bursting with them for a while now, and his curiosity only grows every time Geralt slips, every time he forgets himself.

“Geralt,” Lambert says, and then hesitates. Geralt waits, knowing what he’s going to say. “Are you sure this is wise? Keeping it from him?”

As though Geralt hasn’t lost countless nights to wondering the same thing, as though it doesn’t twist his heart just a little bit deeper down in his chest every time he has to bite his tongue against all the things he wishes he’d said years ago. As though it doesn’t kill him, just a little, to look at Jaskier and see how _happy_ he looks. Is he sure? Of course he isn’t sure.

It doesn’t matter. It isn’t up to him.

  
  
  
  


Jaskier continued to glare after Yennefer long after she had retreated to her room.

“I’m not sure I like this sorceress of yours,” he said eventually. That was more surprising than it should have been - for all that Jaskier could appreciate a beautiful face and sharp wit, Geralt ought to have known that he and Yen would be at each other’s throats within seconds. They were too dissimilar in all the ways that mattered, and too alike in all the ways that didn’t. 

There were a lot of things he could say to that, but what came out of his mouth was, “she isn’t my sorceress.”

Jaskier’s mouth, which had opened ready to go on a tirade that Geralt was certain he could drag out for hours if he so chose, snapped abruptly shut. His narrowed eyes slid to meet Geralt’s and held him there, immobile. 

“Yes, yes, my apologies, she is of course her own sorceress, but dear Wolf you know well and good that’s not what I meant!” Geralt snorted and took a long swallow of his spiced cider. It was still warm - would be no matter how long he waited to drink it if Yen’s etchings around the cup were any indication - and it gave him time to gather his thoughts together before trying to shape a reply.

“I know what you meant, and I’m telling you, she’s not my sorceress.”

Brow furrowed in plain confusion, Jaskier set his cup on the table with a heavy thump; the only outward sign of just how drunk he actually was. They’d already drained half of his reserves of White Gull - so much more potent than any Geralt could remember at Kaer Morhen. But then, Vesemir hadn’t trained them to be Vipers; had taught them how to make potions, not perfect them. 

After a moment, Jaskier’s nose wrinkled. “Right, right, of course, that’s why I can still smell her all over you.”

Just in time, Geralt managed to bite his tongue around _you of all people should know that doesn’t mean anything._ He hated to speak of it with Jaskier - hated how jealousy soured the back of his throat, how his words came out short and clipped. Not that Jaskier realised the cause. Geralt could confess his love in the plainest language known to man, and Jaskier would still cup his cheek and call him his dearest friend; would say that he loved him too, of course, and then slip into the bed of a local marquess. For days after, Geralt would be forced to either avoid his friend altogether, or simply endure the smell of sex that still clung to his skin.

It was different, he supposed, in that Jaskier did truly love all of the people he fell into bed with, in his way. Geralt and Yennefer had a mutually beneficial arrangement. As much as they cared for each other - and hated to admit it - they knew there was no danger of falling for one another. 

Melitele knew, Geralt had tried. Had tried to love Yennefer, because she was beautiful, and unavailable, and she would break his heart but she would do so deliberately. He could retreat, lick his wounds in peace and eventually recover, instead of being faced with the temptation day in and day out knowing that one wrong move could destroy all that he had worked to build for so long.

It hadn't worked; of course it hadn't. There was only so much space in his old, scarred heart, and Jaskier had claimed it as his own years before he'd met Yen. Had made himself comfortable there, had painted it over in his own colours and called it a home, all without realising just what he was doing to Geralt.

He shrugged.

"We slept together," he agreed, because there was no sense in pretending otherwise. It was impossible to lie to Jaskier outright - he was far better at reading people than Geralt. More than that, though, Geralt had never thought he would have to learn how to lie to him until it was too late. "But that was it. We appreciate each other's company, nothing more. Don't worry, you won't have to sing at our wedding."

Jaskier choked on his mouthful of drink, sending a fine spray across the delicate tablecloth. Geralt raised an eyebrow and lifted an unsteady hand to thump at his back.

"Good thing, too, because she might yet murder us both for that," he said dryly, watching as Jaskier recovered his breath.

"Oh, you are cruel," Jaskier grumbled, but there was a smile hiding in the corners of his eyes. He sighed, and tipped his head far enough to lean on Geralt's shoulder. The hand that Geralt had used to help him clear his airways still rested high on Jaskier's back - he reached across and gripped the curve where his neck met his shoulder instead, holding him gently in place. If Jaskier didn't want to be there, it would be an easy enough hold to break, especially considering the numerous tiny blades he kept concealed on his person at all times.

 _I’m cruel?_ He thought idly, as though Jaskier couldn’t taste every one of his emotions on the air between them. He didn’t say anything.

Geralt twisted his head far enough to press a careful kiss to the top of Jaskier's head, and ignored the curious noise he received in response. Let Jaskier make of it what he pleased.

  
  
  
  


He shuts himself away in his room and tries to tell himself he doesn't feel like a petulant child doing so. It isn't as though he didn't know this was a possibility - of course he knew the risks he would be taking, bringing both Ciri and Jaskier to Kaer Morhen. He'd been lucky when they first arrived - Jaskier and Ciri had been half-asleep on Roach, so he had at least managed to signal for Eskel's silence as they approached. It had taken a lengthy explanation as Geralt left Jaskier to tend to Roach before they finally grasped just how serious he was, how serious the whole situation was. Even then, Vesemir had shaken his head disapprovingly in that way he had that always left Geralt feeling like he was still a boy with his first training sword in hand. Vesemir doesn’t approve of his decisions, and has made that abundantly clear - as though there was any choice that Geralt could have made that would have been right.

It isn't as though he's been deluding himself all this time. One day, he knew, he would say something careless, or there would be one unexplainable coincidence too many, or the spell would simply start to decay with age - and he knew that he would be the one to pick up the pieces.

He just thought he'd have more _time._

It’s been years, more than he cares to count, but he isn't ready to lose Jaskier again. Never will be, but certainly isn't now; Ciri will be heartbroken, he thinks, and the others here have already mourned him once.

Even Yen - though she would sooner die than admit it - had missed him, in her way. 

He knows that she would be disappointed in him, if she could see the mess he's making of everything. She has told him time and again what a thrice-damned, pox-ridden, selfish fool of a witcher he is, though only once did she make the mistake of saying it while Jaskier was both conscious and in the room. The scathing ditty that started circulating the summer festivals that year was unfortunately catchy, and slow to fade from the public's memory.

And she’s right; right to call him names, right to be disappointed, right to be angry. Jaskier had been her friend, too, and she’s right to miss him - Geralt doesn’t blame her for that, not for any of it.

Despite that - despite knowing that she’d offer him no sympathy beyond a bottle of wine and a bony shoulder to lean on and pretend he isn’t crying, Geralt wishes she were here. There are years of memories that now only exist between the two of them, and he’s just maudlin enough now to long for them.

He doesn’t know what will happen, but he knows he isn’t ready for it. The best he can hope for, he supposes, is fury, is disgust, is watching Jaskier storm away and knowing - really _knowing_ , this time, that he isn’t coming back. That Geralt will never see him again, that Jaskier has turned his back to him and this time won’t turn around to see him off for a season with a jaunty wave and a bright stanza shouted to the open air.

Jaskier may not be happy, may leave his life for good; but that would be his choice, and he would be alive enough to make it. 

There are other ways the spell could break, and chaos is rarely kind, particularly in a spell so strong.

Sometimes Geralt regrets telling Yennefer not to pry. Regrets that he didn’t let her pick apart the fabric of the spell while she had the chance, didn’t ask her to examine every angle. He can’t be sure if it would make any difference, now, if he knew who had cast the spell, or how, or why they agreed to do so.

He tells himself again and again that he doesn’t need to know - that it clearly wasn’t any of his business then, and it certainly isn’t now. If Jaskier had wanted him to know, then he would have waited, or found a way to pass a message to him, but he hadn’t.

Instead, he had let Geralt think - let him believe - let him _mourn_ -

Geralt doesn’t need Yen to tell him he’s a fool. He knows.

  
  
  


“Foxglove?”

“You’re only saying that because they’re poisonous,” Jaskier laughingly accused, and Eskel smiled but didn’t protest. From across the table, Geralt smirked into his mug.

He didn't winter with them every year - Jaskier was far too used to the seasons in the south, where winter was more of a mild inconvenience and it was never cold enough to snow - but it was no longer a novelty to see him scaling the crumbling walls with a knife clenched between his teeth as he crept up on Lambert. 

"Nightshade?" Lambert tried; Jaskier fluttered his lashes and Geralt took a hasty mouthful of ale to hide his scowl.

"Oh, you flatterer! But no, nice try," Jaskier said. He caught Geralt's eye, and the smile he shared was secretive and soft. Against his will and better judgement, Geralt smiled back - he knew Gweld had seen it from the sudden elbow jammed in his ribs. 

"Maybe Geralt ought to guess!" He suggested, to raucous cheers. Jaskier's head tipped back as he laughed; Geralt's eyes caught on the shifting firelight that played over his cheeks, his mouth, his lashes. 

It was still surprising, how quickly they took to the presence of a strange witcher in their midst; particularly a Viper. The School was notoriously secretive - even Geralt knew only a little more than the common rumours that flew up and down the continent, and that was only because he listened to all the things that Jaskier did and didn't say. 

Perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising, though. Geralt had carried Jaskier's scent on his clothes for years now, much to everyone's great amusement. Even Vesemir, upon catching sight of them both approaching the gate to the keep for the first time, had only rolled his eyes and waved them both in with an impatient flick of his hand. Jaskier had leant so far out of the saddle to swat at Geralt’s shoulder that he sent Pegasus skittering nervously sideways - he had yelped, and clung to the pommel while Geralt laughed at him all the way to the stables. Jaskier had grumbled something about expecting a far colder welcome than that based on Geralt’s… well, everything. Geralt, in turn, hadn’t mentioned that he could hear Coën creeping about on the roof above them.

It hadn’t taken him long to charm his way into their good graces. Jaskier was an excellent conversationalist, and had years of experience in dealing with Geralt. Unfortunately, he had been more or less correct when he’d decided that the best way to win over the other Wolves was to initially stick to Geralt’s favourite topics of conversation, knock someone from their feet while sparring, and produce fine Mahakaman mead from the depths of his pack. All of which had taken him less than two days, and years later had somehow led them here.

“That would be cheating,” Geralt chuckled. “Seeing as I already know the answer.”

The chorus of groans that echoed around the room only set Jaskier laughing harder.

“No fair!” Called one voice.

“Fess up!” Hollered another. 

Kaer Morhen was by no means packed - there weren’t enough witchers in the world for that, never mind Wolves, even if they were all to return for the winter. Geralt looked around the room and knew all of the faces, all of the names; fewer every time he came back. The boys had long since been sent to bed after hours of lessons, kept cooped up in the warmest rooms of the keep for days. Even for a full witcher, the snow was unbearably fierce.

“Yes, Geralt, fess up!” Hooted Jaskier, before climbing swiftly onto the table and staggering the three required steps to cross the barrier and collapse bonelessly into Geralt’s lap. Having seen the maneuver coming, Geralt had managed to lift his cup above his head in time to save it from sloshing everywhere. He was still too slow, however, to save it from Jaskier’s grasping hands; though that may have been because he was too busy staring down at the curl that fell across his forehead, damp with sweat. Blinking, he could only try to ignore the triumphant noise Jaskier made in the back of his throat as he claimed Geralt’s cup and immediately threw back the remaining drink. He smacked his lips and grinned at Geralt, head tipped back to rest against the half-open buttons of his shirt. Heat gathered in the pit of his stomach, but it was a slow, lazy thing. There was none of the urgency he had come to expect, that drove him to seek the nearest willing body he could find, only a comfortable liquid _drip-drip_ down his spine.

It hadn’t taken much for Jaskier to admit that that wasn’t his real name, insofar as witchers had real names. At the very least, it wasn’t the name he had left Gorthur Gvaed with as a young man. But _Julian de Lettenhove_ was the sort of name that attracted all manner of scrutiny, little of it good; for all that Jaskier thrived on attention, it just wasn’t conducive to the life of a witcher, particularly not one from so enigmatic a School as the Viper.

It had taken considerably more to get him to tell Geralt what it meant; none of the others had been afforded such a privilege, and had instead taken to guessing when Jaskier had let slip that it was a flower of some sort. He’d managed to rile up the room, somehow turned it into a night of entertainment - even Vesemir sat in the corner of the room, eyes glinting with amusement.

Geralt wasn’t as good at working a crowd, but he’d learnt a thing or two over the years watching Jaskier entertain as he claimed to be a bard, a poet, a chronicler.

“You all want to know?” Geralt asked, and gripped Jaskier’s wrist tight as he tried to clap a hand over Geralt’s mouth. A cheer went up around the room. “Shall I tell them, flower?”

Jaskier twisted in his grasp, threw an elbow into his chest, and within moments they were tussling like children; too fast, too brutal for any human to follow, but in a room full of mostly-drunk witchers, their antics raised nothing more than eyebrows, laughs, and bets.

Geralt felt he ought to be more offended by how few of his fellows were in his favour, and he no doubt would have been, had they not been right. Jaskier was quick, and impossible to hold onto; he didn’t have as much bulk to wield as Geralt, and he knew how to use his lean frame to his advantage. They were both laughing too hard to try anything showy, but Geralt simply relished in knowing that with Jaskier, he didn’t have to hold himself back.

“This!” Geralt yelled around the hand that gripped his chin tight. He winked at Jaskier, hidden from prying eyes by the curtain of his hair. Jaskier’s grin stretched impossibly wider for the briefest second before he managed to rearrange his features into a playful scowl. “Is hardly fitting behaviour for a representative of the Viper School, _Dandelion!_ ”

Geralt didn’t often lie - he was no good at it, and he was much better off leaving such things to Jaskier - but this, he told himself as Jaskier collapsed forward against his chest with helpless snorts of laughter, barely counted.

  
  
  
  


Ciri leans up to wrap her arms around his neck, and he obligingly lifts her from the ground in a firm embrace. She's too old to be carried, but Geralt likes the reassurance of her bony weight in his grip. 

He'd known it was her even before she reached his door - had recognised her footfalls, and had opened the door before she had a chance to knock twice. She'd stood hunched, twisting her fingers together and looking so wretched that Geralt can't find it in him to be upset with her. Of course she'd asked Lambert about him - Geralt should have expected it. And of course Lambert couldn't refuse her when she turned those eyes on him.

"I'm sorry," she whispers against his shoulder, and he jostles her slightly as he steps back from the door and carries her into the room that he's claimed as his own since the sacking. He doesn't know who it used to belong to, only that he couldn't bear to return to his old quarters; now silent, and dusty. "I shouldn't have pushed. Please don't be mad at Lambert, it was my fault."

Geralt sighs and kisses her head carefully before setting her down to sit cross-legged on his bed. She's shaking slightly, though he isn't sure if it's with cold or misery. Just in case, he snags one of the furs from the foot of the bed and wraps it around her shoulders. She clutches the edges and pulls it right around herself, and though the shaking slows, it doesn't stop. Geralt takes a seat across from her so that he can meet her eyes.

"I'm not upset with you," he says slowly, waiting until she looks up at him before continuing, "and I'm not mad at Lambert. I was, at first, but it's alright now. We've talked, and tomorrow I'll batter him with a training sword, and we'll be good as new, I swear."

Ciri hums and fiddles with the edges of the fur. She's still nervous - Geralt can hear it in her trilling heart, can smell sour fear lingering around her. He lets her gather her thoughts.

"I just… I feel like I'm barely improving at all, even though you all say I'm doing well, so I asked Lambert if he had any stories from when you were training," she says, and Geralt snorts.

"I was a witcher before he was a gleam in his mother's eye," Geralt says, and offers her a small smile. "You'd have to ask Eskel or Vesemir if that's what you're after. I could tell you a story or two about Lambert, though, sometime." He softens slightly, and lifts an arm in invitation; Ciri burrows against his side and stretches her arms around his waist. "And for what it's worth, cub, you _are_ doing well. You came to this life a lot later than the rest of us, and you've had a poor teacher for most of it so far. It'll come, with time."

Geralt feels her nod more than he sees it, swamped by furs as she is. The smell of her nerves has lessened, though it hasn't gone entirely.

"Geralt?" She says in a small voice. He hums. "You aren't a poor teacher. Jaskier says you taught him to use a sword."

It takes a great deal of effort not to react.

Jaskier had come to him one evening, years before, eyes gleaming with a determined light, and demanded that Geralt teach him how to defend himself. He claimed that he knew his way around a rapier, but that he'd never been in anything more demanding than a bar brawl. Geralt had made the mistake of letting his eyes slip down the length of his body, and wondered where he thought the multitude of fine, silvery scars had come from, if not battles. Not that Jaskier scarred nearly as noticeably as Geralt - his salves and potions made sure of that.

He must have hesitated too long, because Jaskier had started on about how dangerous the roads could be when he was alone, and how often Geralt insisted that he stay behind while the _mighty White Wolf got to swan off in search of creatures, and really Geralt, haven't you thought about what might happen when_ _you aren't there to protect me and - ah!_

Geralt had thrown a sword to him, and the look of shock on Jaskier's face when he caught it faultlessly had almost been enough to drag him from the sudden clench of misery in his gut. Had he thought of what might happen when he wasn't there to protect Jaskier? What sort of a question was that? He thought of nothing else, had imagined it a thousand times over.

So, he had taught Jaskier how to use a sword. Not that he needed much teaching.

Even as the bard insisted that he knew nothing of fighting, his footwork still held echoes of the lightning-sharp spins and grace his School had once been notorious amongst witchers for. It had taken some time for him to adjust to the length and weight of the steel - with his shortswords, Geralt was certain he would be just as vicious as he ever was.

"Jaskier had already had some training in his youth," he says to Ciri, which isn't technically a lie. "I didn't have to start from the beginning. It was easier."

Easier, too, that Jaskier relied so heavily on muscle memory he didn't realise he had - Geralt knew each of his movements about as well as he did. 

Ciri is quiet for a time, and Geralt starts to think that maybe she's drifting off to sleep. She's so young, still, and he knows that the training is hard on her; harder still when she spends her time needlessly worrying about an old witcher.

"Will you tell me about him?" She asks, just as Geralt is about to start trying to extract himself and arrange her under the covers for the night. He doesn't need to ask which 'him' she means.

He shouldn't tell her - she's smart, and he knows that sooner or later he'll be careless, but -

But he _wants_ to tell her. Wants to talk about him, about _them_ to someone who wasn't there, who doesn't remember the people they used to be, who won't look at them now and see only comparisons to who they were. He wants to tell her of all the adventures they had, softened and romanticised by years of grief, of longing. More than anything, Geralt wants her to understand that he wasn't always like this - that once he was a man in love, as foolish and reckless as any other. He wants to be able to tell her how often they laughed together, how many long hours they wasted, all the things he's held so close to his chest that not even Yen has been able to pry them free after all this time.

He can't. He can't do that to her. Can't show her a glimpse of the man Geralt used to be when this is all he has to offer her now - it isn't fair to either of them.

From under his arm, she twists to stare up at him, eyes glittering bright green in the low light of the fire. He sighs.

"A little, tonight," he says heavily, and can't help but smile back, just a little, when she grins at him. "After that, we'll see. Where should I begin?"

  
  
  
  


They reached the fork in the road a few hours before sunset.

That should have been the end of it - usually it would have been, but Jaskier had dragged his heels all day, had bitten his lip until Geralt caught the metal-sweet scent of blood in the air and finally managed to persuade him to talk. It was an odd reversal, he thought, to have to coax Jaskier into talking about anything, but he had been unusually tight-lipped about it. Geralt had felt the first anxious fluttering of worry in his chest until Jaskier had eventually looked away and admitted that he had been called back to Gorthur Gvaed for a time.

He didn't often speak of his training, but Geralt knew it had been very different to life at Kaer Morhen - and he was certain that Jaskier had hated it. Geralt wasn't sure if it was the reason behind his general animosity towards the life they led, but he was sure that it hadn't helped. When they travelled together, both between contracts, and when they wintered at Kaer Morhen, something in him seemed to ease; some deeply held tension finally dissipated.

There was no point in trying to tell him not to go, if even the thought left him so morose - Geralt knew it was impossible to make Jaskier do something if he had truly set his mind against it. No matter how much he hated to go back, Jaskier would return to his School when called.

Instead, Geralt said, "we can make camp here. Set out in the morning." And Jaskier turned grateful eyes on him, gripped his arm and nodded with a small smile.

They moved away from the road a ways, and eventually found a small stream - Geralt started settling the horses while Jaskier filled their skins and splashed his face. It was a well-oiled routine by now, to set up camp together, and they danced easily around each other; sometimes literally, when Jaskier was in a good enough mood to grasp at Geralt's hands and reel him briefly close as they worked.

There was no dancing that day - the heavy set of Jaskier's shoulders didn't lift, his eyes didn't brighten even when they sat close together by the fire. Geralt had managed to catch a couple of wood pigeons, and quietly plucked them as Jaskier stared at the flames. The sun sat low in the sky, turning the light soft and muted.

"Those are some very loud thoughts," Geralt said at last, knocking his knee gently against Jaskier's. One of his knives was in his hands, his whetstone sat by his side, but he wasn't sharpening it - only turning it over and over. Jaskier jumped slightly, and it was only his startling quickness that saved him from losing a finger when he fumbled the grip. Geralt frowned - he'd never seen Jaskier do that before.

He put the birds down, and scrubbed his hands against his trousers before turning to face Jaskier.

"Jaskier?" He said quietly, when he wouldn't turn to meet Geralt's eyes. "What is it?"

Still Jaskier wouldn't look at him - only continued to turn the knife, again, and again. Geralt watched him for a moment, before snatching it from his hands and holding it behind his back like a child - Jaskier's head whipped up, startled. A triumphant smile started to make itself known across Geralt's mouth, until he registered the pallor of Jaskier's face. He dropped the knife carefully into the bag at his side and reached out, only to pause when Jaskier stiffened.

"I," he started, and then paused. "You'll laugh." There was an accusing note in his voice - his eyes narrowed. Geralt held a hand over his heart with only a trace of mockery.

"I swear I won't," he said. "Tell me, Dandelion, what's wrong?"

Jaskier sighed heavily, and rocked forward until his head rested against Geralt's chest. Without thought, Geralt lifted a hand to rake through his hair, where it had grown long again and was beginning to curl against his neck.

"They've never done this before," he murmured. "Called us all back. I didn't even know they could find us - find me. I haven't returned in years, I thought they'd have given me up as a lost cause by now. I don't like it."

 _Then don't go,_ Geralt thought helplessly. _Come back north with me. We'll take contracts for a week or two, until it's time to go back to Kaer Morhen, and we'll winter together again._

"I could come with you," he offered instead, and was proud to hear Jaskier's huffed laugh, incredulous though it was.

"Oh my dear, you would be dead before you reached the gates," he said. "It isn't a place for outsiders, even other witchers. And even I would struggle to keep you safe there, I think."

"You mean to say you would try?" Geralt feigned shock.

"I would be most displeased with you if you were to die so foolishly," Jaskier sniffed, but he pulled back until Geralt could see the bright flash of his smile. "But yes, I would make an attempt." He hesitated. "Thank you. I know you meant it, that you would come, but we both know you wouldn't have enjoyed it there, even if you were permitted entry."

Geralt raised an eyebrow.

"And what do you know about what I would or wouldn't enjoy?" He asked, and if there was a teasing lilt to his voice, it was only because Jaskier was so very easy to flirt with. Because light-hearted back and forth didn't have to mean anything between them beyond cheering Jaskier, something it never failed to do.

~~Because he wanted to.~~

Jaskier's eyes lit up.

"More than you, I imagine," he said, and didn't give Geralt time to protest. "Your only answer any time _anyone_ asks what you want is a grunt or some such, I'm starting to believe that you have no notion of what pleases you."

Geralt felt - daring. He wouldn't see Jaskier again for months after this, and there was a desperation beginning to move through his limbs. He had thought, sometimes, had wondered - but then had told himself that Jaskier, who was so open in his desires, wouldn't have let this go on if he did want Geralt, even if only for a night. 

If it was only a night that he wanted, then Geralt would take it and find a way to live with the consequences. He would - but Jaskier never had, and Geralt wouldn't -

He wouldn't push.

"Maybe I'm still trying to work out what pleases me," Geralt said. Jaskier's eyes were dark, and the air between them felt like the moments before a storm - like the night they met, Geralt thought. He felt frozen in place by it, as though moving would bring it all crashing down around him, lightning and thunder and driving rain, and he would lose his nerve, lose _everything_ in the storm.

Jaskier moved for him, pressed a hand to his cheek, his thumb to the corner of his mouth. His eyes were gentle, but his smile was wicked.

"Can I help?" He asked, and Geralt's breath left him in a shuddering rush.

"That isn't a yes, my dear," Jaskier murmured, close enough that Geralt was sure he could taste him on the air, above the smoke and the damp of the forest. Sweet and heavy, with traces of his potions always clinging to his fingers, Geralt knew his scent better than any other. Half awake, it was enough to tell him that he was safe, and half asleep it was enough to rouse him. And Geralt still couldn't press close, couldn't grip and pull as he wanted to so desperately, but he could open his mouth, he could make his throat work, he could say,

"Yes."

Jaskier was on him before he could even close his eyes. All of his instincts, all of his reflexes, they meant nothing before Jaskier, who fisted a hand in his collar and opened their mouths together so sweetly. His eyes closed at the touch of Jaskier's tongue against his lip. The noise caught in his throat could have been surprise, or pleasure, or _want,_ but it was too trapped for even Geralt to make out.

It was Jaskier that drew it from him, soft at first, and then louder as one hand flew up to catch Jaskier's wrist and hold him in place, and _oh._

He sighed against Jaskier's clever mouth and felt the way it curved into a smile, too wide to keep kissing so Geralt shifted, moved back and hummed as Jaskier started to follow him. Geralt opened his eyes to see Jaskier was already watching him, still smiling, and he couldn't help but press a kiss to the line it made from his cheek to the corner of his mouth. His hand was still curled around Jaskier's wrist, Jaskier's hands still in his shirt and hair, and they stared at one another, wide-eyed and grinning.

Geralt didn't know what emotion it was that Jaskier could read on his face - barely had the words for it, and knew that it would sit strangely on his features. Whatever it was, whatever he saw, made Jaskier's expression soften in the way it always did when he got caught up in his singing, or his poems, or music drifting from a distant street. 

Far beyond stopping himself, Geralt traced the lines of his face with the backs of his fingers. Jaskier twisted his head to press a lingering kiss there, to the barely-there scars that littered Geralt's hand.

He leant in, and this time Geralt met him halfway, eager and open. Time crawled by, and it wasn't until Geralt pulled back at last and had to strain to adjust his pupils that he realised the sun had dropped below the horizon.

"Don't do that," Jaskier said - Geralt looked back at him with a frown. The hand in his hair tugged once, sharply, and his mouth dropped open before he could stop it. Jaskier's eyes flashed.

"We'll revisit _that_ later," he muttered to himself, before fixing Geralt in place with a sharp look. "Don't try to run from this, now, dear Wolf. I _know you,_ it won't work on me."

"I wasn't," Geralt started to protest weakly, but the words died in his throat. "On purpose," he finished. Jaskier snorted, and relaxed impossibly further against him. Any further argument he might have made was kissed solidly from him before he could even attempt to make it.

"After tomorrow I won't see you for months," Jaskier said, barely an inch from Geralt's mouth. "I won't have this hanging over us, dear heart. If you won't be there when I return then please, tell me now, don't drag it out, don't run from me."

"I'll be here," Geralt said, promised, swore. "As soon as the weather turns, as soon as the mountain is safe. You know where I'll be. I won't run, Dandelion, not from you."

"Good," Jaskier said, so beautiful that Geralt could hardly stand it. He hauled Jaskier across, to straddle his lap, and he went easily, laughingly. It left him above Geralt, who pressed his advantage ruthlessly, nosing beneath his jaw and following the path back with lips and teeth. Jaskier's head dropped back with a shaky sigh. " _Good,_ " he said again.

Geralt slowed as he reached the dip of Jaskier's collarbone, unable to look up, hands tightening against his waist. Jaskier's breathing caught, and a moment later there were fingers beneath Geralt's chin. They applied no pressure, but they didn't have to. Geralt was weak to Jaskier's whims.

"I love you," Geralt said, eyes still fixed down, at the curls he could see at the collar of Jaskier's shirt, at his own hands spanning his waist. "You know that, don't you?" He laughed a little at himself, and finally lifted his eyes to study Jaskier's face. "Everyone else does, it seems, you must -"

Jaskier cuts him off with another kiss, hurried and fierce and nothing at all like the careful ebb and flow of before. Geralt was on fire, he was sure of it, he must be, there couldn't be another explanation for the impossible heat that radiated from every point of contact, so unlike anything he'd experienced before. He'd taken lovers in the past, and none of them had left him like this, had let him lose his thin veneer of control like this. He bit down until Jaskier tugged at his hair again, and it was sparring as much as it was kissing, and Jaskier may know his every weakness, but that was just fine, because he knew a trick or two, as well.

"I love you," he managed to gasp against Jaskier's mouth, and then again.

"Good," Jaskier snarled; the dying fire reflected bright in his eyes for a second, and Geralt was transfixed. " _Good_ , my dear Wolf, I love you, of course I love you, how could you not know I love you?"

"In my defence," was as far as Geralt got, before Jaskier pushed him back to land against the leaves with a soft thump. He tipped his head back and laughed, even as Jaskier fell with him with a soft _oomph_ , wrist still caught in Geralt's firm grip.

"You have months to think of a good defence to wow me with when I come back," Jaskier said, and grinned. He ran a careful hand down Geralt's face, down his throat, and planted it firmly on his chest, above his quickening heart. "For now, dear Wolf, let me do what I do best, and make enough noise for us both."

  
  
  
  


It takes him until late evening to work up the courage to approach Geralt, who has been anticipating the ambush all day. The knock is almost timid; something he has never, in all the years he has known and relearnt Jaskier, associated with the man. He glances up from his book in time to see Jaskier push the door open and peer around the room, squinting into the darkness - on the first pass, his eyes flick over Geralt, before snapping back to him. Jaskier takes a deep breath, frozen to the spot, before slipping into the room - Geralt closes his eyes, then his book, setting it to one side.

"I tried your room first," Jaskier says softly. "Ciri was asleep."

"Did you wake her?" Geralt asks, and curls his fingers into a careful ingi, which he sets down in the fireplace. It'll take a few minutes to catch properly, but Vesemir is, at least, meticulous in ensuring that all of the rooms have prepared, functioning fireplaces, even those no longer used. The shadows recede a little, and hook on Jaskier's jawline, his cheeks. Geralt's heart squeezes.

"I don't think so," Jaskier says, and he's distant for a moment as he smiles before he comes back to himself. He glances once around the room without even a flicker of recognition, and comes to sit beside Geralt on the small sofa.

It isn't the first time they've shared this room, this seat - but it is the first time that Jaskier's left any space between them. Geralt feels every inch like it's been carved into his skin.

"She barely slept these last two days, waiting for you," Jaskier says gently, and Geralt opens his mouth before he has a chance to think better of it.

"And you?" 

Jaskier frowns at him, brow creased - Geralt wants to smooth the lines away with his thumb. Jaskier looks almost exactly as he did when they first met, regardless of Yen's jabs about crow's feet and grey hairs, but in the light of the fire, with his mouth pulled down, he seems to have suddenly aged ten years.

"I knew you'd be fine, of course," he says, and though his voice is light, his frown doesn't lift. "But I'll admit, you were starting to test the limits of my faith in you, Geralt." 

Geralt looks away, stares into the fire. He's not sure how much of Jaskier's faith he deserves. Close enough to touch if he were to reach out, Jaskier shifts, starts to lift a hand, before he thinks better of it. Geralt hears him drag in a deep breath, and he knows that there's a question on his lips, but he doesn't ask it.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop on Ciri and Lambert," is what he says instead. "And - I'm sorry if I heard something you didn't want me to know. But Geralt -" he pauses, long enough that Geralt turns back to him, meets serious eyes painted gold in the firelight, pupils wide in the gloom. He almost looks like a Wolf.

"You can trust me, you know that, right?" He says finally. Geralt jerks - of all his concerns, Jaskier believing that he doesn't think him trustworthy enough to tell this to had never crossed his mind.

"I mean, I understand that there are probably lots of things that you don't particularly want to tell me, but I just hope you know that if you ever _do_ then you can. You know. Talk to me." He trails off, waving one hand airily even though his voice is perfectly serious. "About anything, anything at all! I have been told by _several_ reputable sources that I am as attentive a listener as I am -"

"I trust you," Geralt says, because he can't bear to hear Jaskier talk about what an attentive lover he is - as though Geralt doesn't _know_ \- but also because Jaskier needs to hear him say it. He needs to know that Jaskier knows.

"Ah. Well. Then." Jaskier says, and falters. It's so unlike him that Geralt can't help soften, tilting his head to take in all of the bard.

"I trust you," he says again, just to make sure Jaskier really understands what it costs him to admit this. "I didn't tell you because there are things I didn't want to… because it hurt. To think of."

"Geralt, you don't have to -"

"I know," Geralt says. He stares down at his hands, at the way his fingers twist together. He's never been one to fidget, but now he can't seem to stop their restless twitching. It's a habit he's fairly sure he picked up from Jaskier. "But I want to tell you now. And you - I think you deserve to know. Some of it. As much as I can."

Jaskier reaches over, then, and rests a hand atop his to still his fingers.

"Thank you, dear Wolf," he says, and then looks surprised. It's been many long years since he last called him that.

"We travelled together for decades, on and off," Geralt says, and his voice is harsher than he means it to be, catching in the back of his throat. Jaskier hums faintly, and shifts a little closer. "He trained at the School of Vipers, in the south. It was - he didn't talk about it often, but it was very different to the way we were taught here. _He_. Was very different." 

Geralt swallows hard, has to shut his eyes as his back threatens to bow forward. He doesn't know what he can safely tell Jaskier, or how much he'll want to hear, but gods, he's missed him. After the mountain, he had assumed that would be the end, that he had finally crossed a line to the unforgivable - that whatever it was about him that made Jaskier decide not to return to him the first time had again reared its ugly head. That Jaskier had looked at him, had seen him and once more found him wanting.

"I can't - I don't know what - what do you want to know?" Geralt asks, and his teeth are gritted - he drops his head into his hands, runs them back until he can grip his hair in his fists.

The noise Jaskier makes is low and distressed. One hand cups the back of Geralt's neck, and the other comes to rest on his thigh. His thumb rubs careful circles against the base of Geralt's skull, trying to knead away some of the tension.

"Geralt I really don't think -"

"It's _fine,_ " Geralt hisses. "I want to tell you, I _should_ tell you, and you want to know, obviously you do, I just, I don't know. Where to start."

Jaskier hesitates. "Where did you meet?" He asks. That's easy enough. Geralt can do this, he can, he wants to.

"Decent size town, on the border of Nilfgaard," he says, and doesn't turn to watch Jaskier's reaction. "Don't remember the name - I don't think it's still standing. I'd never been that far south before, haven't been back since. But an acquaintance of mine had recommended me for a job down there, and I owed her a favour, so I went. Her contact had someone try to poison me."

Jaskier sucks in a breath between his teeth. 

"Why?" He asks, and Geralt chuckles a little at his shock, his outrage.

"You know, I never asked? But - all the Vipers had a far better sense of smell than the rest of us, he knew my drink had been poisoned, stopped me drinking it." It's strange to think of now, that Jaskier had once been a stranger to him - that Geralt had sat across from him, met his eyes, and it hadn't meant anything. That he had caught that scent and not immediately thought that it smelled like coming home.

"He saved you," Jaskier says, and there's something odd in his voice that Geralt can't quite pin down. It happens from time to time - there were years between their parting and Geralt finding him again, and he has no real notion of what Jaskier did with himself during that time. He's not the same man he once was, even without the influence of a spell.

Geralt hums instead of answering. 

"Did he - did you start travelling together then?" Jaskier asks softly. Geralt snorts.

"He caught up to me on the road," he says. "Travelled together until my next contract a week later. He stayed further north than he used to, after that. Saw each other a lot. Didn't start taking contracts together until a few years later, but we - I trusted him sooner than I expected."

Jaskier laughs a little.

"Well for you that isn't saying much," he says, and the forced levity in his voice makes something foul run icy fingers down the length of Geralt's spine. "You aren't known for your faith in, well, anyone."

"I was younger, then. I hadn't seen as much of the world," he says, and shrugs - Jaskier's hand slips from his neck to rest at his shoulder. "I trusted more freely back then, and he made it easy to trust him, even though Vipers trained more like assassins than witchers. And things were better when we travelled together - he could pass as human, when he wanted, used to handle things if people got difficult with me."

Jaskier doesn't respond to that, but Geralt is sure that it isn't lost on him that he had taken to doing the same.

"Tell me about him," he says finally. "Not about Vipers, not about your witchery things. Tell me about him."

The breath Geralt drags in shakes in his ribcage. He - even with Ciri, he'd told her very little before exhaustion started to drag at her eyelids. He hasn't talked about Jaskier, about who he _was_ in so long that he's not sure he knows how.

"When I knew him, he was - brave. Reckless, sometimes, but he knew his limits," he falters. That hasn't changed. So much of Jaskier hasn't changed. So much of him has. "And he was good at appearing harmless, so good that sometimes I would start to forget, but he was dangerous in so many more ways than any other witcher I've ever met. And he - he was a dreamer, and sometimes he drove me mad because he spent so much time wishing for a different life instead of _paying attention_ to the one he had, and he would start to talk about all the things he would do if he wasn't a witcher until I couldn't even look at him because it was like trying to stare at the sun, and -"

Geralt cuts himself off when he realises that there are two dark spots on the grey wool of his trousers. Slowly, he lifts a hand from his hair and swipes at his cheeks - he's crying, and he hadn't noticed. He had almost forgotten he could do that.

"You loved him," Jaskier says, and it isn't a question. The odd note is back in his voice.

There's no point in trying to lie to him.

"Never stopped," Geralt says. He stares down at the tears on his knee, watches as they gradually dry in the heat from the fire. 

"Did you tell him?" Jaskier asks - if this had been years ago, Geralt would have said he sounded pained, but now he just doesn't know. It must be strange for him, Geralt supposes, to hear a witcher talk of things like love, to realise that Geralt had lived a lifetime before the inn at Posada and never spoken of it.

He grinds his teeth until his jaw aches - Jaskier presses close, and the stink of misery is heavy on the air as he does. Geralt thinks it might belong to them both.

_Did you tell him?_

_Yes_ , he wants to say. But that will only lead to more questions, he knows. _Did he love you too?_ And that's harder to answer.

 _Yes,_ he wants to say, _he loved me too. He told me he did, and I believed him because I had no reason not to. I'm sure he did because I could see it, hear it, smell it, feel it. No one could lie so completely, not even him._

_He loved me, and it wasn't enough._

"Doesn't matter," is what he says instead; because it's true, and he still, after all this time, doesn't know how to lie to Jaskier. The sound Jaskier makes in response is ragged, mournful.

"It matters, Geralt," he says eventually, and his voice hasn't lost the rough edge. "Of course it matters, why wouldn't it matter? Don't you think he deserves to know? If you still love him? You could -" he swallows, heavily, and when he speaks again his voice is thick and muted. "You could travel together again, if you wanted, if he were to -"

Geralt's laugh creaks and crackles in his chest. There's no humour in it.

"The Viper School was sacked, a few years before Kaer Morhen," he says shortly. He can do this, if he's clinical, if he doesn't lie. He can take the knife left between his ribs for so long and twist it further, push it deeper, if it will just stop Jaskier _talking_ like there's some kind of perfect future where he can have everything he wants. "Nilfgaard wanted to use them as a private force and they refused. They had called as many of the witchers back as they could, told them there was a state of emergency, and he went." Geralt manages to look over at Jaskier, who has gone very pale. "Why did you think you'd never heard of him - of us before? Witchers don't retire, Jaskier."

He stands abruptly - can't stand whatever it is in Jaskier's eyes that's making them shine the way they are.

"I'll stay in Ciri's room tonight," he manages, and glances around once more. Even if Jaskier weren't here, he doesn't think he could sleep in this bed anymore. He ducks out of the room, and Jaskier doesn't try to follow him.

  
  
  
  


Geralt didn’t hear about the sacking of Gorthur Gvaed until it was too late.

Jaskier would be fine, he knew. He was fast, and clever, and he had promised that he would be back in time for the thaw. His medallion sat warm against the skin of Geralt’s chest, hidden beneath his shirt alongside the memory of his smile, of his wink as he rode away laughing. Of his giddy cry of glee that sent his horse skittering sideways, because even after all this time he couldn’t tell good horseflesh from a flighty racer.

And Geralt - who had done nothing more than shake his head despairingly and lick the lingering taste of Jaskier’s mouth from his lips, who hadn’t said goodbye because what was a season between witchers, who hadn’t stayed long enough to watch him disappear into the distance - Geralt waited.

  
  
  
  


He knew better than to try to track Jaskier - the other witcher had gone to ground, and there was no way that even he would be able to find him until he wanted to be found. So instead, he continued to travel, passing through the places he remembered Jaskier loved; he took contract after contract, creatures that he could kill in his sleep and others that he wouldn’t have dreamt of fighting alone not even a year ago. He kept to the main roads, made his presence known the instant he entered a town, gave his name freely, took more contracts.

When Jaskier felt safe enough to find him, he wanted it to be easy. He took more contracts, and he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

  
  
  
  


Geralt doesn’t remember much of that year.

  
  
  
  


Eventually he learnt to stop listening to the rumours. Stopped hoping every time he caught the scent of mulling spices or arsenic in the air. Years later, and he could catch a glimpse of twin shortswords without catching his breath, too. Familiar towns became nothing more than a place to stop for the night, and he stowed Jaskier’s medallion in the pouch at his hip, unable to bear its weight against his chest. Sometimes he thought of leaving the Path behind - of finding himself a place on the coast and wasting away there, but it never seemed right. This was all he knew how to do; the only way he knew to live, to be. He turned his face forwards and stopped waiting for a voice beside him to ring clear as a bell.

  
  
  
  


Still hasn't stopped the nightmares, though. Hasn't stopped wondering what he’d say, what he’d think, what he’d do, if he'd seen Geralt then; what he'd do now, if he knew just what it is Geralt's keeping from him.

  
  
  
  


And then he took a job in Posada.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, time sure has passed, huh? It really has been... time since the first chapter. How much time? Who can say? (Too much time, oops)
> 
> A few things:
> 
> Thing the first - no doubt you've all seen it already, but @daryshkart on tumblr has made THE most gorgeous fanarts of this story!! I'm not ashamed to say I screamed. Those of you that HAVEN'T seen them, stop reading right now and go check it out first. You will absolutely be blown away. If I knew how to make a link here I would do it.
> 
> Thing the second - you may have noticed that the chapter count has sneakily increased, woah, how did that happen? (It shouldn't really a surprise. This fic was originally supposed to be a <10k oneshot, can you believe?) What that means is, things are NOT YET fixed in this chapter. We're getting there! But I wanted to warn you that we're still in the 'worse' part of it gets worse before it gets better. Look after yourselves when reading
> 
> Thing the third - I do not know how to play gwent. I tried to look it up. I did not understand it. I know there are different decks of cards. I know you can gamble. From that I extrapolated that there's probably an element of bluffing. If that's wrong, then I am terribly sorry, and please feel free to assume this is an alternate version of the game
> 
> Thing the fourth - so this fic wound up getting way more popular than I could have possibly imagined. I wrote it on a whim as a result of a late night conversation with a friend, and things exploded from there. Somehow it took off, and I want you all to know, genuinely, sincerely, that I have read and loved every single comment you have left me. Every kudos, every bookmark has meant so much these past few weeks. We're getting through this, dear hearts. Stay home, stay safe, look after yourselves, love yourselves as much as I love you, because I promise it's a whole fucking lot
> 
> (but also, wow, there are lots of you, with like, expectations, holy shit)

At first, he didn't notice - or rather, he didn't realise. It wasn't the first time he'd seen Jaskier, in the years since… Well. In the years since. Wasn't the first time he'd caught his scent, heard his voice, been so sure that he was there, right there, if only Geralt could quickly turn and look, could catch up to him.

He never was. Geralt had learnt to stop trying.

This time was no exception - the figure in the corner of his eye wasn’t quite right. His hair was cut shorter than Geralt had ever seen Jaskier wear his. There were no swords strapped to his back; his clothing was old, but expensive if Geralt had to guess, the fabric vibrant and rich. Jaskier had loved attention and fine things, true enough, but their lives rarely allowed for any such indulgence. Any spare coin was spent on better food and wine, on baths and perfumes. No sense wasting money on clothes that would shred like paper under the merest whisper of claws.

The figure wasn't quite right, but that didn’t stop Geralt's heart leaping to his throat. He was lucky it was enough to stop his voice; that it trapped his breath in his lungs, or he might have called out across the bar.

The bard handled his lute with the same fluid ease Jaskier had held his swords - even his voice sounded so much the same that Geralt had to bow his head. It was shameful, for a witcher to still be so affected by his emotions, even after all these years. Geralt squeezed his eyes shut. He could allow himself that much weakness, he thought, before opening them again and turning his head to the window. The bard was singing, the rich curl of his tenor so similar to Jaskier's that Geralt found his hands twisting into claws on the table - he swiftly tucked them down into his lap before anyone could see.

Regret surged through him. Had he not already accepted Nettly's offer of a contract, he could have fled as soon as he caught a glimpse of the bard. Instead he was forced to sit and wait for him to return with the promised coin.

He hardly noticed when the bard stopped playing - barely heard his indignant protests as the other patrons told him exactly what they thought of his songs.

(Geralt had always loved it when Jaskier sang; loved how his voice lifted to reach the cavernous ceiling of Kaer Morhen, how it dipped low and wavering when they huddled close in the dark and the cold.)

He did notice when the bard approached, steps light and deliberate.

"I love the way you just sit in the corner and brood," he said, and Geralt's traitorous mind filled in the details of Jaskier's voice, of the little half-smile he would wear, of the fluttering twitch of his fingers. Jaskier could never keep completely still.

Geralt refused to turn his head, refused to look at the man that wasn't Jaskier.

"I'm here to drink alone," he said, and if his voice was harsh, if it was more growl than word, well - he rarely spoke beyond negotiating payment these days. 

"Good, yeah, good," the bard replied, and shifted closer, and Geralt inhaled sharply, and he -

He missed whatever the bard said next.

His scent lay heavy on the air between them, and it was closer than Geralt's mind had ever managed to conjure before. The perfume was wrong; light and floral, without any of the warm spice Jaskier had favoured. There was no lingering touch of poison on his fingers, only the rosin he used for his lute - but beneath that, beneath it all was a scent so familiar that Geralt had to slam his eyes shut so that he didn't make the mistake of wheeling around to look.

He knew better than to look. Of all the times he had believed he'd seen Jaskier, caught his ghost in the corner of his eye, there was always something he could never quite get right.

"- some review for me, three words or less," the bard that couldn't be Jaskier was saying when Geralt finally convinced his uncooperative heart to stop pounding so loud in his ears.

"They. Don't. Exist," he managed from between gritted teeth - all he could hope was that if he gave _some_ answer, brusque and short, perhaps the bard would _leave_ , would stop taunting him with his voice and his face and his restless hands. Instead, he only heard the shift of the bard's weight, that scent growing stronger as he leant close across the table. 

"What don't exist?" He asked; it was as teasing as it was genuinely confused. As though the bard thought Geralt was playing along with him. His lip curled in the beginnings of a furious snarl that he only just managed to contain. A human would have started to reek of fear by now, but there was no tang of adrenaline. The bard's breathing hadn't even changed.

"The creatures in your songs," Geralt said, and he didn't bother to try to control the exhaustion, the anger in his voice. 

The human - he had to be human, Geralt was sure, he had to be, despite the rich scent that told every one of Geralt's instincts that he was _safe_ that he was _home_ \- wasn't at all put off by his tone.

"And how would you know?"

Disbelief reared its head, and Geralt found his gaze snapping to the bard, locked eyes with him and -

No.

_No._

No, it -

It wasn’t -

The figures he saw, the ghosts he imagined, there was always _something_ off - his clothes, his scent, his voice, his posture. But even the ones that were perfect, even the times that Geralt had believed, had truly thought that maybe, _maybe_ ; even then, he had never once managed to get the eyes right.

Cornflower blue, wide and bright, watched him reel back without the barest trace of recognition.  
  
  


Geralt is half-woken the next morning by the whisper of the door over flagstones. Anywhere else and he would be awake in an instant, but his body recognises the air of the Blue Mountains, knows the feel of Kaer Morhen's wards brushing lightly across his skin.

More than that, he knows the scent the newcomer brings with him, rich, and gently spiced; Jaskier had found old bottles of perfumes in the baths, and hadn't noticed how Geralt had frozen the first time he flounced in, hair dripping wet onto his collar. 

Geralt doesn't open his eyes - lets himself drift in the place between asleep and awake that he used to know so well as Jaskier slips through the door and makes his way across the room. There's something scratching at the corner of his mind, something that he can't quite get hold of. It can't be that important, he decides hazily, if it isn't enough to wake him.

The bed dips as Jaskier sits beside him, and Geralt can't bring himself to do anything more strenuous than breathe deep and bury his face into his pillow. There's a different scent there, one that makes his chest thrum warm and gentle, but still isn't enough to rouse him entirely. _Ciri_ , he thinks, and it's a vague, barely-formed thing, but it must have been enough to part his lips - he hears Jaskier chuckle before he speaks.

"Lambert woke her early - it's a little warmer today, and she wanted to explore some of the old training grounds. Don't worry, I made sure… Geralt?"

Jaskier sighs, and the sound is so hopelessly fond that Geralt can almost imagine -

"You aren't even awake, are you?" He asks softly. Geralt doesn't bother to correct him; he should be able to hear how Geralt's heart has quickened, but he realised years ago that the spell doesn't allow such thoughts to take root. They pass through Jaskier's notice, there and gone again like distant lightning.

"Some witcher you are," he murmurs, and there's something tight in his voice that has Geralt's stomach twisting itself into painful, cramping knots. "I could've been anyone, and you didn't even wake up. What good are all those mutations if you don't use them? No wonder that Viper of yours had to save you -" Jaskier cuts himself off sharply and draws in a ragged breath that shakes as he exhales. Geralt tries to drag himself back from the edges of sleep that still cling to him, but before he can, Jaskier shifts again and he catches the salt of tears in the air.

"Stupid," Jaskier mutters; he sounds furious. He sounds _wrecked_ , and it's wrong, it's all wrong, what's the point of all this, of any of it, if Jaskier isn't happy? It's the only thing Geralt's been able to hold on to for so long, the only thing that's kept him anything approaching sane as Jaskier wove his way back in and out of his life. Then, " _selfish._ "

Low, so low Geralt has to strain to hear, Jaskier hisses between his teeth, something he only ever did when he was on the brink of losing all control over himself. It's been years since Geralt heard him do it - he lays frozen, unsure if Jaskier, this Jaskier, would want him awake for this. If he would want Geralt to see him like this. He doesn't understand, he doesn't _understand;_ Jaskier was happy, he's meant to be _happy,_ what changed, what could possibly make him -

_That Viper of yours._

Last night - it's why he's here in Ciri's bed and not his own. It's why his head aches like the first time Jaskier let him try his White Gull; why he tossed and turned restlessly for hours before finally slipping into an uneasy sleep. It's why Jaskier hasn't gleefully ripped the covers off and dumped him on the floor the way he has every other time he's managed to sneak up on Geralt without waking him. Why he hisses again, and curls his hands into the fabric of his trousers until Geralt hears the fabric begin to rip beneath the assault.

Jaskier _knows._ Not all of it, not even close, but _enough._

What had Geralt been thinking?

Bad enough that he doesn't understand the spell well enough to know the potential consequences of telling Jaskier too much - he took a gamble with Jaskier's mind, with his _life,_ all because he's so damnably weak. Because Jaskier had looked at him and asked, and he had _wanted_ to. Not only has he put Jaskier in more danger than the bard could possibly know, but he can't even argue that he'd done it for Jaskier's sake. As much as Jaskier might argue that he'd been the one to ask - and he would argue, of that Geralt is sure - it doesn't matter, because he had no way of knowing just what it was he'd asked. What Geralt had foolishly risked by telling him.

And now he has achieved nothing but making Jaskier miserable - he should have expected it. He _knows_ how deeply Jaskier feels for those he… those he cares for. Of course the thought of Geralt's grief would be distressing. Of course he would shoulder the blame for being the one to ask prying questions; never mind that it was Geralt who had insisted on telling him.

Geralt squeezes his eyes tighter shut and wishes he hadn't woken; wishes last night was some terrible dream that he's still tangled in and any minute now he'll wake safe in his own bed, with Jaskier a few doors down murmuring in his sleep because he's never truly silent.

(Wishes that any minute now he'll wake and Jaskier will be curled against him - he'll follow him to Gorthur Gvaed, will refuse to let them be parted for even a second, no matter what that means for him.)

Jaskier moves to stand, then sinks back, slowly. The weight of his gaze is heavy on Geralt, who doesn't think he could open his eyes if he wanted to. He thinks Jaskier must still be crying; hears him sniff and rub at his face. Hears the rustle of fabric as he moves, stretches his arm out until Geralt can feel the warmth of his skin. 

And then he stops.

The searing heat is so close to Geralt's cheek that he thinks it could burn him, if Jaskier were to close the distance, thinks it would leave a branded scar for the world to see. He wants to press up into it; wants the mark, the reminder that Jaskier is here, with him.

Jaskier's hand hovers, and then brushes a loose strand of hair back, lingering. Geralt can't do anything but sigh.

"I'm sorry," Jaskier whispers thickly. "I should've realised - I. You deserved better, you and your Viper. I'm sorry." His thumb brushes Geralt's cheek, so faintly that it might have been nothing more than Geralt's own longing. The path it leaves is damp, and stings like salt - it's enough to finally yank Geralt closer to waking, enough to make him stir and begin to twist his head, seeking that bright warmth again.

Under his breath, Jaskier curses.

"It's alright," he says, and his gentle voice is somehow perfectly even - but then, he's always been so much better at hiding his emotions than Geralt, something that no-one's ever believed when he tried to tell them. Geralt only ever forces his emotions down and bottles them tight. Jaskier masks them with other, simpler emotions. 

"It's alright, dearest," he says again, and despite himself, Geralt finds himself relaxing. "Sleep, now."

There's no hint of axii in the words - and Geralt isn't certain that Jaskier could cast the sign anymore, even if he knew to try - but still he obeys. He's always been weak to Jaskier's whims.

The next time he wakes he's alone, with only traces of Jaskier's scent still on the sheets.

  
  
  
  


Years of swallowing his grief - of clinging helplessly by his fingernails to Vesemir's training, of letting the world tell him that witchers didn't have emotions, and any they did have were meaningless - were the only things that let him keep some control of his expression. The bard that couldn't possibly be Jaskier kept talking, and though Geralt couldn't hear him through the sudden ringing in his ears, he was sure that he could follow along with every crest and fall of his voice. He knew perfectly every movement of those hands seconds before they happened. Knew those eyes better than any other, even when they stared at him as though this meant nothing, as though _Geralt_ meant nothing.

It was a relief when Nettly finally returned with his coin - Geralt just about managed to duck his head in the bard's direction before he turned tail. He had hoped to pry some more information on this supposed devil from Nettly before leaving, but that was no longer a priority. Jaskier would have refused to let him go; would have dug in his heels and gripped the nape of his neck to hold him in place until they knew all they possibly could about the hunt. Jaskier had always hated to take a contract without knowing everything in advance - hated not knowing the best strategic approach, the best place for an ambush, which potions they might need, and which weapons they could leave with the horses.

It was all Geralt could do to make it out of the door without his legs giving way beneath him - he whistled sharply, and rested his head against Roach's neck when she ambled close in a display of weakness that would've got him a clip round the ears as a boy.

"Come on," he murmured, to her and to himself. He shook his head abruptly - it had been too long since the last time this had happened, that was all. It had rattled him, left his hands trembling, but that was alright. He was in control of himself. He would endure, as he always had.

The bard caught up to him on the mountain path; Geralt gripped Roach's reins hard enough that the leather of his gloves creaked. 

"Need a hand? I've got two - one for each of the, ah, devil's horns!" Geralt didn't need to look to know that he would be waving his hands around in an absurd demonstration. He refused to turn, refused to look, only put his head down and tried so hard not to listen for the beat of his heart - as slow as Geralt's own, except that was impossible.

"Go away," he rasped.

Hadn't he been haunted long enough? Was it not enough that the bard looked and sounded like Jaskier; now Geralt couldn't trust his own senses not to lie to him and give him precisely what he wanted.

"I won't be but silent back up!" The bard proclaimed, and Geralt, despite everything, almost laughed. _Jaskier_ would have been back up, but even then, it was exceptionally rare that he managed to do so quietly. Geralt had wondered, sometimes, at Jaskier's talent for stealth given that talking seemed to come as naturally to him as breathing.

The silence the bard promised lasted only a couple of steps.

"Look, I heard your note, and yes you're right, maybe real adventures _would_ make better stories. And you, sir, smell chock _full_ of them!"

Geralt had plenty of stories, but so few of them were solely his own - and besides, he had never been the one to tell them. He gritted his teeth and hunched his shoulders and prayed to any god that would listen that the bard would give up soon, would stop fucking _taunting_ him.

"Amongst - other things, what is that, is that onion? Doesn't matter, whatever it is, you smell of death, and destiny! Heroics and - and heartbreak!"

The crack in his voice would be inaudible to humans - to Geralt, he may as well have screamed in his ear.

Smelling of death wasn't unusual; practically an occupational hazard for a Witcher, and the nonsense about heroics and destiny was just that - nonsense. But heartbreak? Heartbreak had a particular smell, a very definite combination of hormones usually half-drowned in liquor and saturated in sweat. Geralt knew it well; even before, Jaskier had proclaimed himself heartbroken each time they parted for longer than a few months, as well as every time one of his flings tossed his belongings out of a window. Usually it was nothing more than his dramatics getting the better of him, but Geralt had caught the scent of it on him a few times nonetheless.

In the years since, he had grown well acquainted with it, clinging to his skin and clothes.

Jaskier would recognise the smell in an instant - wouldn't have any troubles interrogating Geralt over it, either. So if this was simply Geralt's mind playing some cruel trick or other, why the hesitation? 

And if it - if it wasn't, if this was simply some poor bard caught up in the mess of Geralt's grief, then why say it at all? And why, _why_ did he sound so wistful?

"It's onion," Geralt said, because he didn't know what else he could possibly say.

"Right, yeah, yeah," the bard said, and was only deterred for a few blissful seconds. He pivoted at Geralt's side, arms flung wide like the beginning of a dance that Geralt only half-remembered from gleeful nights spent drunkenly hauling each other around in celebration - as though Jaskier had ever needed an excuse to drink and dance.

As though Geralt had ever needed an excuse to hold him close enough that they breathed each others' air until one of them broke away laughing.

"Oh, I could be your barker!" He enthused. "Spreading the tales of Geralt of Rivia, the Butcher of Blaviken!"

Geralt froze where he stood.

Well that settled it, he thought, as he swallowed back bile. There was no way that this could be Jaskier. Decades had passed, and if there was any chance that he still lived somewhere out in the vast world then he would surely have changed as much as Geralt had - but Jaskier would never call him that with such frank admiration twisting his face and voice. Jaskier wouldn't have heard the whispers of what Geralt did and thought even for a second that he could be proud of it.

The code that Geralt had relied on so heavily had rarely failed him, but Blaviken left regret crawling thick and slimy across his skin, made so much worse because there was a time the decision would have been easy. Jaskier wouldn't have hesitated - he would have listened to Renfri with his head on one side, absently rubbing his fingertips together until her story was done. He would have stood, stretched long and sinuous, and dragged Geralt back to the tower to finish Stregobor before the mage had a chance to realise he was trying to guard against the wrong witcher.

Jaskier had rarely struck fear into the hearts of men, but he would occasionally strike a dagger there instead.

All Geralt could do, in the end, was hold Renfri as she died. He could offer her that much, at least - gentle arms, instead of hard cobbles. And he had wondered, as he watched her still, as the light in her eyes glinted and faded away, if there had been anyone there to hold Jaskier as he died. If there had been another Viper, caught between fighting Nilfgaardian forces, that had taken the time to pull him close, to hold his hand.

He had wondered what Nilfgaard's mages had done with his body.

That was another regret - that he hadn't run Stregobor through on the street for trying to take Renfri. Whatever she had done, whatever she might or might not have become, she had deserved better than that. Geralt hadn't been able to do right by her or the citizens of Blaviken, but damn it, Jaskier would have believed that he'd _tried._

Geralt locked his jaw and turned to face the bard, who watched him with arms still spread wide. Defenceless.

"Come here," he said, and his every move was slowed and projected until even a human would see the punch coming. The bard didn't look away from his eyes, but something in them flickered as Geralt drew back his fist. Tension flitted across his features and was smoothed away half a breath later.

Jaskier would have had him flat on his back before the blow could land. The bard staggered back, gasping for the breath Geralt had knocked from him. His mouth twisted as he stared down at the wheezing form, willing his vision to settle, to stop fucking _lying_ to him. What sort of witcher couldn't trust his own mind? What good was he then?

His medallion sat warm and humming against his chest, and he carefully ignored it.

"Come on, Roach," he muttered, turning away; he pretended his heart didn't leap, unwieldy and aching, when he heard the bard scramble after him.

  
  
  
  


"This is where we part ways, bard," Geralt said, staring up towards the fork in the road, because it was easier than glancing down and risking a glimpse of cornflower blue. The bard's fingers stilled on the strings of his new lute - elven made, and thrumming with so much magic that Geralt could almost pretend the warmth of his medallion was a response to the spells woven into the wood.

"Hey, I promised to change the public's mind about you! At _least_ allow me to try."

From the corner of his eye, Geralt saw the bard turn to flash him a bright smile, head tipped to one side.

"And, please; it's Jaskier. Bard sounds so cold, don't you agree?"

  
  
  
  


By the time Geralt finally makes it down to the main snug they use for lounging now that so much of the keep is in disrepair, Ciri has already been dragged back inside and bundled in furs until only her eyes and wind-reddened nose are visible. She's curled against Jaskier's side in a chair that isn't strictly speaking big enough for two, watching as he glares Eskel down over his gwent deck. Geralt rolls his eyes - Eskel hasn't changed his strategy in at least forty years and refuses to be told that it's out of date. Although Geralt has to admit, it's been so long since his style of play was favoured that most humans likely don't recognise it anymore.

Occasionally Ciri leans across to whisper advice in Jaskier's ear that Eskel politely pretends he can't hear. In return, Jaskier points out every flaw in Eskel's play to her as he makes it - deliberately, Geralt thinks as he watches Eskel fumble what should have been a simple defence. But it makes Ciri's nose crinkle with delight when Jaskier follows her directions as he sets down his next card.

Geralt folds his arms in the doorway and watches them until Lambert comes up behind him and shoves past, yesterday's transgressions already clearly far from his mind.

"I'll play the winner," he says, and throws himself down beside Eskel. Immediately, he begins a series of complicated and nonsensical gestures behind Eskel's head. Ciri muffles her laughter in Jaskier's shoulder and Geralt feels some of the tension in his neck melt away. Jaskier sounded like his usual self, without a trace of the anger or misery of earlier.

"What about you, Geralt?" Eskel asks without looking up from his hand. He chews the inside of his cheek, a tell he had never been able to get control over - he's about to make a feint. “Fancy a game?” Ciri scrabbles around, planting a foot in Jaskier’s gut as she turns to greet him. Geralt smiles, and steps close enough to press a kiss to the top of her blankets, and then her nose. She’s still cold, but tucked against Jaskier she’ll no doubt warm up soon.

And Jaskier, who is normally so easy and free with his affection, holds his arms tight against his chest so that Geralt doesn’t so much as brush against him.

“Morning Geralt,” he says, and the strain beneath his smile is almost too faint to see. “Or afternoon, rather - I didn’t know witchers _could_ sleep past sunrise, this truly has been an educational experience for me. I hope you don’t mind, but we thought you could use the rest after storming back up the mountain the way you did; and I don’t know about anyone else, but can I just say what a relief it is to realise that the circles beneath your eyes haven’t stained after all? I was beginning to worry they might permanently ruin that dear sweet face of yours.”

It isn’t the most outlandish thing Jaskier has ever said to him - not even in the last week - but for some reason his jaw locks as soon as he registers what he’s said. His eyes dart away from Geralt, back to his cards.

Eskel glances between them and his brow furrows, tugging at the scars down his cheek and twisting his mouth into something like a grimace - Geralt shakes his head. He isn’t sure, either, but he knows, deep in his gut, that it’s a result of last night. Jaskier has never worried about the things he’s said to Geralt in the past. Nothing else has changed.

Where he might have normally settled himself on the ground before Ciri, close enough to the table they’re using for gwent to rest a drink but also close enough to the chair to reach out and reassure himself with a brief touch that Jaskier and Ciri are still safe, Geralt now sprawls in a chair close to the fire. There are a couple of books still sat on the arm that he glances briefly over, but they are both introductory tomes. Likely they’ve been unearthed from the depths of the library for Ciri, and so he resigns himself to watching Eskel attempt to cheat while Lambert ruins his every effort.

Not that it seems to matter much - Jaskier outwits Eskel at every turn, even with Lambert’s absurd pantomime distracting him. Geralt feels his face soften into a smile as he watches.

Some things never change, it seems.

Eventually, Ciri emerges from her pile of furs and pads over to Geralt, claiming a book and the scant few inches of the chair she can squeeze herself into. Geralt sits resolute for a few seconds as she wriggles, before conceding and shuffling to the side. She plants her cold feet beneath his legs and opens the book on her knees, before turning back to watch the game continue. Unable to stop himself, Geralt digs a gentle finger into her ribs.

“There’ll be a test on that later, rascal,” he says, nodding to the book in her hands teasingly. “It’s all well and good knowing how to beat Eskel at gwent, but you also need to know how to quickly differentiate between lesser vampires.”

Ciri groans, and looks for a moment like she’s contemplating throwing the book at his head.

“Do you have no faith in me at all?” Eskel asks with a grin, still chewing at his cheek. It’s a miracle he hasn’t drawn blood, Geralt thinks. He rolls his eyes.

“Now Geralt, I can think of a few times that a good gwent deck has got us out of a spot of trouble,” Jaskier says and when he looks up, for a second, it’s as though the years have faded away - he meets Geralt’s gaze keenly, mouth curled and eyes glinting. “The books aren’t going anywhere, but Eskel’s about to lose both his pride and his rights to the best cuts of meat tonight, and it’s not a defeat I want her to miss.”

He turns back at the table, and the illusion is shattered.

Ciri watches, enraptured, as Jaskier tears through Eskel’s defences over the course of his next few moves. 

"You really do need to work on your strategy; it's terribly outdated, any old fool could see what you were planning," Jaskier says amiably as they clear the table and begin to set up for the next game. Lambert has produced his own deck from somewhere in the depths of his shirt, and watches Jaskier with sharp eyes as though he might somehow catch him cheating. As though he ever had before. "And you chew your cheek when you bluff, it's a dreadfully obvious tell."

Eskel scowls without true irritation or malice - it isn't the first time Jaskier has thrashed him at a game, and Geralt suspects it won't be the last.

"Are you going to play?" Ciri asks him, and her eyes look almost luminous in the shadows of the single blanket still wrapped around her like a cloak - Jaskier snorts before Geralt has a chance to even consider answering her.

"There's no point, Geralt always gambles too much, and he can't bluff for shit," he says, and leans back to pluck his lute from where he had precariously leant it. He kicks one leg over the arm of his chair, strumming idly and doing a valiant job of ignoring Lambert's steadily creasing face. Clearly the game will begin when Jaskier decides he's ready, and not a moment sooner. It's the sort of childish taunt that he would have relished in before - goading one of the younger witchers into starting a fight with him because they believed that with his human-like eyes and lean frame, he would be an easy opponent.

Lambert knows better than to let himself get worked into a temper, but knowing something and putting it into practice are two very different things.

Oblivious to the steadily mounting tension - or rather, uncaring of it - Ciri frowns at Jaskier.

"That's not true," she says; he cocks an eyebrow at her, mouth tilting to one side. His rhythm barely falters as he gestures for her to go on. "Geralt lied a lot when we were travelling."

Jaskier laughs - his head tilts back with the force of it, until he's a long, graceful arch stretched over the chair. Geralt swallows, and reminds himself that it isn't his place to look, anymore. The musk-sweet scent he catches between them sometimes, late at night as they sit and talk beside a fire, bedrolls pulled close because it's cold and Jaskier likes to sleep beside someone isn't the same as having the right to -

Especially because Jaskier doesn't know what he would be asking for. What he would be agreeing to. 

"I think you'll find, cub, that Geralt lied very little," he tells her conspiratorially. "In fact, if you think back, you may recall that he mostly stood behind us with that terrifying expression he gets when he thinks he'll have to go another week without a bath, and let me do all the fibbing for us. Just like old times, was it not?"

This last part is directed at Geralt - the wave that sweeps across him is sharp and terrifyingly painful. Every time he thinks he's grown accustomed to the ache, to the wanting, it finds some new way to surprise him into stillness. He grits his teeth against it, the muscle in his jaw working for a moment, before he forces his expression to lighten, and relax into a smile. Ciri didn't notice, too busy watching Jaskier's fingers on the frets of his lute. 

Jaskier did, though; his eyes are heavy with regret as he meets Geralt's gaze. Even if he doesn't understand exactly why, he knows that something has Geralt hurting - perhaps, after their talk, he has some notion of what it could be.

He'd be wrong, of course; but he'd have some notion.

 _That wasn't what he meant,_ Geralt reminds himself sternly. _We've travelled together for years, since; that's all._

“I can lie,” Geralt lies. Except it isn’t much of one - Jaskier is one of very few people that he has never been able to adequately fool with a glower and a half-answer. Eskel snorts.

“To humans, maybe,” he mutters, and Jaskier’s fingers slip on the next chord, leaving it ringing discordant in Geralt’s ears.

He keeps playing, of course - he's a professional above all else, Geralt knows. Many times, often when half-asleep on his feet, he's patted Geralt's chest or arm unsteadily and reminded him that audiences are far more forgiving of mistakes when they are confident. A drunken horde is unlikely to pay attention to a flat note or misspoken word - but even the worst audience in the world will notice a bard that suddenly stops playing and curses his mistakes.

"He can't lie to me, and I'm human," Ciri says reasonably. Geralt doesn't insult her by pointing out that he _chooses_ not to lie to her. They don't know if he can or not, because any time he might have lied to her, he simply stayed silent. Jaskier, having recovered his wits, smiles indulgently.

"Perhaps, but you are his destiny - and terribly clever besides," he says. Ciri preens, even as she arranges her features back into their frown.

"He can't lie to you, and you're human," she says to Jaskier, and this time, his hands freeze on the strings. He looks at her, expressionless, eyes blank, before his mouth settles into a smile, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes creasing. Geralt is so tense his very bones ache with it - he doesn't look down at Ciri, even when he feels her staring at the side of his face. Eskel and Lambert remain silent.

"I'll have you know that I'm terribly clever, too" Jaskier says finally, with an absent laugh. Geralt seizes on it with enough relief to make his hands shake.

"Not to mention humble," he says, and Jaskier points a finger at him.

"So nice of you to finally acknowledge my many wonderful qualities," he says - it's light. Teasing. It's something Jaskier has laughed about so many times in the past - Geralt's sparing compliments, the awkward way he chooses to deliver them. Geralt shrugs - normally he'd take the opportunity to tease right back, but he doesn't trust his own voice now. More than that, he doesn't trust that Jaskier will respond the way he does normally. There's still an undercurrent of something miserable to his scent, still something about the set of his brow that has Geralt on edge.

_Stupid. Selfish._

Instead, he nudges Ciri gently back towards Jaskier, who places his lute down and opens his arms for her to scramble into. He scoops up his gwent deck and winks at her, shoulders curving away from Geralt, who tells himself that it doesn't hurt to see.

"Don't worry about that test," he says to her, fanning out his cards so that she can see them all clearly. "Geralt is a soft touch, deep down - and besides, the only thing you really have to remember for lesser vampires is that they're all sensitive to Black Blood and vampire oil. Gwent, on the other hand, is awfully complicated, even when it's Lambert playing."

Lambert grumbles a protest, and Geralt huffs. It isn't quite a laugh, but he's more relaxed now that Ciri isn't staring curiously up at him.

"It's not quite so simple as that," he says. "It's important that you know how badly fucked a situation is going to get before you charge in. You need to know how to prepare; Black Blood is good, but it's no use to humans. And even for witchers, it isn't enough to kill a vampire on its own."

Jaskier rolls his eyes without ever really looking up from his deck.

"Maybe not the way _you_ make it," he grouches, and lays down his next card, and doesn't notice the way Geralt starts to shiver.

  
  
  
  


The rings he wore were silver, so he couldn’t be a doppler. He was too solid to be a ghost. There was always the chance that Geralt had finally lost his wits, but that wouldn’t explain the songs suddenly cropping up in half the bars in the damn continent.

He didn’t understand, he didn’t _understand_.

Jaskier was there, only he couldn’t be there. Jaskier was dead, but then, who was it following Geralt? Who would go to the trouble of imitating his scent, his walk, his eyes, only to get other details so very wrong? If this was a trick, some sort of ploy to get close to Geralt, then why did it leave him so desperate to drive this, this _shade_ away?

An effective one, perhaps; no matter how he tried, he couldn’t seem to shake it for more than a couple of weeks.

"Why the fuck are you still here?" He growled finally, a few months after it had started following him. The thing that called itself Jaskier - that may have been Jaskier - that was Jaskier - looked up from the meals sat before them with a curious expression. There was no fear, no hesitation as it - he - smiled, and took a long swallow of ale.

"What can I say?" He - it - shrugged. "I'm like a weed. I've put down roots, so to speak, dear witcher! At the very least, you'll have to learn to cope with my presence until I'm quite satisfied I've done a good enough job on rehabilitating your - frankly - piss-poor reputation. If you wish to be rid of me, perhaps you might consider working on that scowl of yours. People will be far less likely to believe you a cold-blooded killer if you look less like you're wishing death on every unfortunate soul that happens to cross your path."

He turned back to his food, and didn't notice the stony lines Geralt's face settled into. 

A weed, indeed.

The bard - Jaskier - _Dandelion_ \- stayed with him for a full season, until Geralt started to weave his way back north towards the Blue Mountains, and each day it felt as though he made a game of driving Geralt further and further out of his mind.

He talked and sang endlessly, an expert on every topic under the sun according to his own estimation. After the first few days of it, Geralt had finally rounded on him to ask just _where_ a human learnt to speak fluent Elder, as well as developing a keen interest in the prediction of storms from the shape of clouds, and why a man would be as fascinated by the plants that grew along the coast and were rumoured to make the finest dyes on the continent as he was by the political climate of Redania.

Jaskier had hesitated; except, that wasn't right. Hesitation would have been something done deliberately, something he was conscious of. Jaskier simply - stopped. 

And after a beat, his smile picked right back up where it had left off - he met Geralt's furious confusion easily and shrugged.

"Here and there, dear witcher - Oxenfurt for a turn, Novigrad for a spell, Cidaris for a change, and of course all of my most valuable lessons were learnt on the road herself! No lecture hall can compare to the harsh professor of experience! You of all people should know that, surely?"

Geralt grunted and eyed him sideways, suspicious and angry in equal measures. All places they had travelled together, all places he knew Jaskier had come to love. All places Geralt had spent more years than he was proud of returning to, listening desperately for any news that a strange man named for a flower sought a witcher's help. 

He hadn't known what else to do, then. He didn't know what to do now.

"You're well travelled, then," he said at last, and there was no question in his flat voice. Jaskier chose to answer him anyway.

"An artist such as myself really has to be, sweet witcher, or how would I ever know enough about the world to sing of it? It's my calling to bring the continent to the people with my music, my tales, my poems! Well travelled, well rounded, well spoken; a bard must be all this more, don't you think?"

 _More_ , Geralt wondered - what more was he? What talents did he possess, this bard, this Jaskier? How many of them did he justify to himself as the sorts of things that could be picked up on the road by anyone that paid the slightest attention - how many did he not spare a passing thought to, even when asked?

"Hm," Geralt replied, and watched Jaskier's face carefully as he said, "that's a lot to ask of any bard, never mind one as young as you. How old did you say you were?"

Jaskier's expression fell away and his eyes took on a terrible emptiness for a fraction of a second. By the time he turned to grin at Geralt, though, the light was back in them, cheeky and bright as they ever were, so fast that no human would ever notice. Geralt wanted to scream.

"As old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth," he laughed, and shifted the conversation away so fluidly that it took Geralt a minute to catch on and realise what he'd done.

Every time was the same - questions about his past would stall him before he laughed, giving wildly conflicting answers designed to entertain more than inform. Geralt, even knowing all he did about Jaskier, struggled to know if the bard was aware of the gaps in his history. If there was a nagging sense that something was wrong, something that left him silent and morose sometimes when they sat together on long evenings watching the fire blaze higher.

Worse, though, were the days that Jaskier took it upon himself to pry Geralt's life story from his tight lips. With every question, every assumption, every teasing word and nudging elbow, every tale he managed to extract, Geralt had to beat back the hurt, the anger, grief that roared so fiercely in his chest, had to bite his tongue so he didn't snarl and snap.

_You know that, you remember that, surely, you were there, that one was your fault, that one was my idea but only because I thought it would make you laugh, that one was Yen's fault but Melitele preserve us if we ever said so to her face._

He was Jaskier, but he wasn't. He had the instincts of a witcher with nothing behind them, he talked and laughed the same but the conversations were all wrong. He was everything Geralt had missed for so long and he couldn't even let himself have him, because he wasn't _Geralt's_ anymore - maybe had never been.

Jaskier had loved him, Geralt knew. If there was anything in this life he wished to be sure of, it was that. But love, he knew, wasn't everything, and however much Jaskier had loved him, it hadn't been enough to ease the wistful tone of his voice when he spoke of leaving his life behind. Of being anyone, anything, other than what and who he was.

It seemed he had finally found a way to make it happen - and had left Geralt behind with the memories of his old self.

Perhaps it wasn't personal. Perhaps it wasn't even intentional. It didn't make it hurt any less.

And yet, again and again, Geralt found himself making his way back to the bard, to this Jaskier that wasn't his. Found himself watching him sing, watching him dance, and laugh, and live a life his Jaskier had dreamed of for so long; it was like muscle memory, he told himself. He knew the motions of loving Jaskier, of wanting him, of being by his side. Of allowing himself to be reeled in, of coming close but never quite close enough to satisfy.

No matter how hard it was to stay with him, it was worse to stay away.

  
  
  
  


Roach lowers her head as soon as he lets himself into the stall, until she is the perfect height for him to rub between her ears and stroke his thumb across her cheek. She has been with him for a few years now, and is long used to his scent - less feisty than the last Roach, and far more amenable to letting him stand in her blind spots without a warning kick.

"Morning," he says, and lets her snuffle at his sleeves. He has no treats hidden away for her today - only a good stiff brush, and a pick for her feet. The snow is still too thick down the trail for him to feel comfortable taking her down the mountain, and although Ciri delights in taking her to the small school that they cleared out in the first week to practice maneuvers, Geralt still worries that she may be feeling a little neglected.

Roach dips her head and nickers as he steps around her - he throws her rug over the stable door and sets to work. She hasn't worked enough to get sweaty for a while, but she seems to appreciate his efforts regardless, her thick winter coat prone to quickly growing heavy with dead hair. As he goes he keeps up a low rumble of praise, and she keeps one ear turned to him while she eats. Occasionally he'll pause, and she'll turn to nudge him until he begins again with a little laugh and gentle admonishment that she's getting spoilt.

At the other end of the long barn, he can hear Eskel and Ciri moving around, checking the goats and chickens. Before Kaer Morhen, Ciri had never had a chance to put the work into her own meals - even running from Nilfgaard, Geralt gets the impression she survived mostly through the generosity of a few, and her light fingers doing the rest. Within a couple of days at the keep, she had come bounding into his room as he slept, still weak and sore as his leg finally finished purging the last of the infection. There had been straw in her short hair, feathers stuck to her boots, and fresh milk on her upper lip. It had taken Eskel all of one morning to firmly settle himself in her affections by teaching her all the places the hens like to lay, and the best way to bribe the cantankerous old cockerel, and how to milk the goats. Geralt had listened to her excited chattering, utterly charmed, and so relieved to see her beginning to come out of her shell.

After that, he had started teaching her how to properly care for a witcher's horse - because she would need to know, someday, but also because he wasn't about to be outdone by Eskel.

Jaskier often joins him in watching her as she takes Roach through her paces - as she learns to keep her seat when Roach rears back, or kneels, or goes from a rapid canter to a dead stop in the space of a stride. They'll lean against the fence together, or Jaskier will sit above him with his lute balanced on one leg as he composes. And it's too cold for a human to sit comfortably for so long but Jaskier never realises, and Geralt never points it out. 

Now he's almost afraid of what will happen if Jaskier decides to join him again.

Every time he tries to talk to the bard alone, even if only for a moment, he's nowhere to be found. He shrinks back from the careful hands Geralt lays on his arms or shoulders - his embraces are short, and tense. More than once Geralt has seen him start to lean in, thoughtlessly affectionate, before his face tightens, and he withdraws so sharply that Geralt can't help but turn to look.

This is worse, so much worse than any of the times Jaskier has pulled back from him in the past, and not only because he's never had the patience to draw it out for this long before.

It used to be that Jaskier would very occasionally work himself into such a fit of temper that he would be abruptly silent and distant from Geralt until he either realised what he'd done to incite such ire and apologised, or Jaskier grew tired of waiting, and returned to his normal method of expressing himself - loudly and unreservedly.

He doesn't seem to be angry, now. Most of the time he simply seems sad, and nothing Geralt tries has made any difference. 

The only thing that has changed, the only thing Geralt can think of, is that Jaskier knows, now, that Geralt spent years with another witcher, with someone that he loved - someone that he failed. And more and more, he notices that Jaskier will pause in the middle of a sentence with his eyes far away - or he'll be halfway through a story and have to suddenly stop to try and recall the end.

Something has shifted. Geralt is terrified he knows what that will mean. What is coming.

He can only hope that he's wrong - or, at the very least, that things will hold until the thaw comes, and they can return to civilisation and seek out a mage. Their numbers will be severely depleted after Sodden Hill, he knows, and there were so few that he trusted before, but at this rate they won't have a choice.

The spell has held, seemingly without change, for decades. And now, now that they're trapped halfway up a damn mountain with no easy way back, now that Geralt is surrounded by some of the vanishingly few people in his life that he never learnt to hide from, _now_ it begins to fracture.

_Stupid. Selfish._

Unblinking, eyes burning with tears, he stares at Roach's flank until she nudges him reproachfully. He scowls, curses himself under his breath, and returns to brushing her down with a whisper of apology. Geralt can't remember a time in his life when tears came so quickly and freely to him, but ever since he let himself cry for Jaskier - for the life they had had, that he had spent so long mourning - it seems that he can't stop them. A week ago, Vesemir had pulled him aside with a grimly sympathetic look on his face, and told him not to come back to the keep until he could handle himself better than this. Geralt had spent two days aimlessly wandering the mountain, snarling furious and futile at every pang in his chest, every tear that fell. He had returned to the keep just before dawn, to find Jaskier's scent still fresh at the door, and the bard himself nowhere to be found.

It's not that Jaskier is avoiding him - not exactly. If Geralt didn't know better, he might have thought that Jaskier is trying to give him space; except Jaskier has always known when he needs to be left alone, and when he's pushing everyone away because he thinks he _should_ be left alone. Geralt can't bear to be near Jaskier now, but more than that, can't stand to let him out of his sight. No matter what he does, he ends each day feeling heavy and sick, with his heart crawling up to sit at the back of his throat and the other side of his bed cold and empty.

It's the longest they've gone in years without Jaskier crawling into his bed for warmth, or comfort, or because they are too short on coin for a larger room, or simply because.

He doesn't hear the barn door open, or the footsteps on the stone, but he does hear Jaskier's cheerful voice call a greeting to Ciri and Eskel. Geralt puts his head down and works on a stubborn knot in Roach's mane.

"Good morning, ladies," he hears as Jaskier wanders through, and the sudden frenzy of wings suggests that he'd brought something to treat the hens with. A few stalls down, Geralt hears Scorpion begin to fuss and dance in place as Jaskier reaches him with a soft word. "And of course, good morning to the best of steeds, the noblest of mounts, dear Roach - and Geralt! Hello."

The forced cheer in his voice is worse than silence.

"Jaskier," Geralt says, and glances over. He's leaning on the stall door with one hand clenched guiltily against his chest. Breathing deep, Geralt catches the scent of sugar on the air - he tilts his head so that Jaskier can see the very edge of his smile and waves a hand. Taking it as permission, Jaskier laughs a little and holds out the cube for Roach to delicately lip from his hand. 

"You'll wind up with rotten teeth at this rate, my girl," Geralt mutters to her as he works the last of the knots free and moves to her other side, trailing a hand along her back as he goes. He thought she had been favouring her right hind the last time Ciri rode her, but there's no heat or swelling as he runs his hand down her leg.

From the door, Jaskier watches him and makes a considering noise deep in his throat.

"I can't believe I didn't notice it before," he says, and then hums a little, like he's annoyed at himself. "Well, no, of course I noticed it, but I can't believe I didn't realise."

"What's that?" Geralt asks, and he's - he's just pleased that Jaskier is still here, is still talking to him. His head is on one side, cheek resting against his forearms as he leans on the door; the fine fabric of his usual doublet has been swapped for a heavy shirt and leathers that are both just a bit too wide at the shoulders. Geralt is fairly sure they're his, kept tucked away in his old quarters.

Very little of Jaskier's had been kept here - Geralt had torn through the keep that first winter, searching for anything, anything that still held even a scrap of him. The medallion around his neck might as well have been choking him; he had gripped it tight in one hand, convinced that if he let go for even a second then he would be letting go of Jaskier as well.

Hours later, Eskel was the one to find him; the one to drag him up and back to an empty room so that the boys didn't see him when they woke early for training.

"When you talk to Roach," Jaskier says, yanking Geralt back to the present. "I always thought it was odd, that sometimes you speak to her like she's a human, and sometimes like she's a horse. I never worked out why - but it wasn't always Roach you were talking to, was it?"

Geralt swallows.

"I couldn't get used to the silence," he admits. He shouldn't be doing this - he shouldn't be telling Jaskier any more than he has already, but the words shape themselves without his permission. "I kept expecting him to just - be there, talk back. But he wasn't, and he didn't, and I couldn't fucking _stop_ -"

And it was easier to talk to his horse than a ghost. It meant that no-one ever had to choose between their fear and hatred of him, and pity. No-one ever had to worry that the witcher had gone mad and would butcher them all. No-one had to question if the witcher had feelings.

Jaskier watches him with wide, clever eyes. He sighs and opens the stable door, lets himself in and ducks under Roach's questing nose with an apologetic rub to her neck.

Geralt feels how he goes perfectly still when Jaskier straightens beside him. They're almost of a height, but Geralt is curled into himself, hunched over Roach, leaving Jaskier perhaps an inch taller than him. It isn't something he's used to.

Jaskier hesitates - it's a deliberate moment, before he reaches out and tugs Geralt's shoulders towards him.

He goes easily, folds himself down into the embrace with a shudder.

Against his neck, Jaskier's breath is hot and just slightly uneven. Geralt's arms curl around his waist; the motion is so familiar that if he only closes his eyes, it's like no time has passed at all. The feel of armour, of Jaskier's warmth, his scent as Geralt tucks his face into the curve of his shoulder - all of it he knows as well as his own heartbeat, stuttering in his chest. Jaskier's arms tighten, pull him closer, and Geralt has to lock his knees to stop them giving way.

He's _right here,_ he's so close, like he never left.

"I'm sorry," Jaskier whispers; he turns his head just far enough to dust a kiss against Geralt's temple. Geralt shakes his head.

"Nothing to be sorry for," he grunts. Jaskier laughs, and there's no humour in the sound.

"I upset you," he says - Geralt isn't sure if he means now or before, but he doesn't want to ask. "I keep upsetting you. I'm sorry - I really don't mean to, it's just, you're hurting, and I hate to see it, but I don't know what to do, I don't know how to help, and all I seem to do is make it _worse_ and I'm doing it _again_ I'm making this about me, and it isn't, it's about _you,_ and I do know that, even if Ciri had to come and give me a telling off the likes of which you've never heard leave a child's lips -"

"Ciri did?" Geralt asks, stunned. He hadn't realised that she'd noticed. Jaskier laughs, and though his hold loosens, he only moves far enough to watch Geralt's face.

"She told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't to be mad at you, and that I needed to come and talk to you. I, of course, explained to her that I wasn't mad at you in the slightest because there was nothing to be mad about, but truthfully, I think that only made things worse."

He stops, and Geralt takes the opportunity to reorient himself in his skin.

"I am sorry, though," Jaskier says eventually. "Not just for - all that, but sorry for what happened. No-one deserves something like that, but especially not you." There are so many things twisting themselves into knots in Geralt's throat, fighting to break free. So many things he could say - should say - needs to say.

He can't say any of them.

"Not even Valdo Marx?" He asks instead, and the moment breaks like the breathless fall through thin ice. Jaskier laughs once, quick and startled, and oddly fragile.

"Well," he says, and Geralt laughs, too.

“Now, will you stop dodging the subject and let me apologise properly?" Jaskier says, serious again. Geralt feels the smile, small though it had been, slide from his face. "And before you say anything, it doesn't matter whether it was my fault or not. You're my friend, Geralt, no matter how much or little you want to tell me. I just - I hope you know that."

His eyes are earnest, searching - however much he wants to, Geralt can't turn away from them, though he doesn't know what Jaskier can read in his expression.

"Of course I do," Geralt manages, voice rough. His breath stalls in his chest - abruptly daring, he pushes forward to rest his forehead against Jaskier's. One hand settles at the back of his neck; not restraint, but a reminder that he is there, that he is real. "As long as you know that I was never upset with you."

"As you say, dear Wolf," Jaskier says. It is unsteady, but Geralt can hear the smile in his voice. He breaks away from Geralt's hold gently, hands lingering before they drop to his side. When he turns away, he isn't quite fast enough to hide the sheen in his eyes.

Geralt opens his mouth, but finds that words have abandoned him. As always, Jaskier doesn't seem to suffer from the same problem.

"When you're all done pampering Roach, Vesemir's asked that we take a look at the arch above the far western courtyard," he says, and if Geralt couldn't smell the salt, he'd never know how close Jaskier is to crying. Before Geralt can stop himself, he starts to reach out - his hand clenches in the air between them, and he manages to lower it to Roach's neck before Jaskier turns back to face him. He doesn't want to risk forcing Jaskier further from him with an unwanted touch, no matter how desperately he wants to give it. Unless Jaskier comes to him first, he can't afford to reach out.

"It's been looking worse for wear for years," Geralt says, because that, at least, is something safe.

"He's worried it may be ready to finally give in and collapse, I think. I'll hunt down Lambert as well, we'll probably need a few pairs of hands."

"He'll be by the -"

"South wall, on that little plateau he loves so much, I know!" Jaskier laughs and offers Geralt a cheeky wave over his shoulder, the bounce returning to his steps as he walks away.

Geralt takes a shuddering breath, and tells himself that Lambert must have shown Jaskier down to the south wall at least once this winter. He must have.

  
  
  
  


Every step sent fire lancing up his leg, but he didn't have a choice. It was that or lay down in the grave dirt until the muscle had knitted itself back together, and that would take at least a day, maybe two. Once, Geralt wouldn't have thought twice; would have settled himself in for a night of swearing through his teeth and shivering when infection started to set in. Once he wouldn't have had to make the decision; would have been slung across a deceptively strong shoulder and carried back with Jaskier's voice berating and gentling him in equal measures.

On his back, his swords seemed to grow heavier with every foot of ground he covered; the faint chiming of bottles at his side may as well have been bells.

The walk out had taken perhaps an hour. The walk back took three times that. He thought, anyway. Time stopped meaning much after he had to slump against a tree and vomit up half the contents of his stomach. His head beat in time with his heart.

He passed the first few houses on the outskirts of the town without incident - it was late enough that many of the townspeople would be asleep already. It wasn't until he passed the guard - little more than a boy in his father's armour, but in a village as small as this with so many already lost to the cemetaur, he served the post well enough - that a cry of alarm went up.

Not surprising, he thought distantly. His eyes were still tar-black, colour leaking to the skin around them. He was sure he was filthy, and drenched in blood, and he was so close to leaning on his sword as a cane that it was shameful.

Or maybe it was the cemetaur head he clutched desperately in one hand that made the boy scream. His ears were ringing too much to tell.

The shrieking did its job - doors slammed open, people came running, and Geralt stopped dead in the middle of the road, unable to focus on any of them. The sudden light from the fires, low as it was, sent pain rippling back across his skull as the last of Cat pounded through his veins. He had been short on White Honey, even before he spilt half of it on the ground when his leg throbbed fierce enough to make him jerk in place. It would be a long night.

Around him, he could hear movement. Could see figures, but exhaustion and the spikes of agony left him struggling to pick out any details. There was no way to control his pupils. No way to know what his face was doing as the screaming continued. As it grew louder.

One voice, though, lifted above the rest. Shouting, not screaming. Projecting, he thought. Didn't know where the thought had come from. A voice that was trained to be heard above all else.

There were words, he was sure of it. Words being said by the voice, now much closer. Words that he should say in reply. He blinked slowly. When that did nothing to clear his sight, he shook his head fiercely. Almost overbalanced with it. Hands grasped at his arms, and he jerked back. Tried to shape his free hand into aard and couldn’t. The hands came again, slower and softer this time. Light. Barely there. Every breath caught in his chest. He’d fallen back against a headstone, broken at least one rib, smacked his head. 

It was quieter, he realised. The crowd had retreated a little. Enough to give him space to breathe. 

Except for one. 

He tried to track the movement and couldn't. The hands continued their path down his arms, curled around his fingers. Took the head from his grasp, he realised a second too late. Reached for it but couldn't find it again. There was a noise caught in his throat, but he couldn't be sure what it was. He _needed_ that, it was his proof the contract was done. Without it, the alderman could turn him away. Could refuse him the coin he was owed.

Something patted his arm. He flinched almost imperceptibly, and it stopped.

“Oh, my dear, your _eyes,”_ murmured the voice. Geralt frowned. They would be terrifying, he thought, but the voice was soft, and sad, and close, and _familiar._ He frowned harder. “Why didn’t you take any -”

As he spoke, those hands patted down Geralt’s side. Reached the pouch at his hip. Unfastened it and tried to rifle through.

Geralt whipped his head around so fast he was dizzy with it. Teeth bared, the growl that ripped from his throat bordered on a scream. He hurt, he _hurt,_ but even through that, he knew he couldn’t let anyone have it. Not that. There was… something in it. Something important, he knew. Something dear. His, but not his - a gift. For him to take care of, to hold onto.

Around him, the crowd surged. Loud, but not loud enough to block the steady stream of noise from directly in front of him.

“Alright then, we’ll leave that for a moment! I don’t know what sort of dreadful things you keep in there besides those decoctions of yours, but rest assured even my curiosity isn’t enough to make me risk the use of my fingers - they are my livelihood, after all! Or, no, not dreadful, you ridiculous witcher. Embarrassing? Don’t tell me you’ve decided to follow my great example and started writing poetry? No? A stash of coin then, despite all the times you tell me we’re all out. There we go, well done, one foot then the other. No, I’d have surely heard a coin purse - oh, dear, that’s a little bit close to these poor good folk, and you do smell rather ripe. Come here, you great fool, come on.” 

There was fear on the air, but it was a distant thing. Closer than that was a smell as familiar as… as…

Geralt’s head pounded, and he followed the hands that tugged at him. Didn’t know how not to - followed the scent that pulled harder than the hands. His feet, though still clumsy, were surer than before. Strength that had fled hours ago surged through him.

“Here, here, just a little further, that’s marvelous my dear witcher, there we go, sit yourself down, come on.”

The voice moved, and Geralt moved with it, head tilting as he tracked the blurred movement. He could recognise the shape, the sound, the scent, but his hazy mind wouldn’t place it. 

He sat.

“Alright, shall we see what we have to work with? This really wouldn’t have been such a problem if you had only taken Roach with you, you’d have had all the potions you could possibly need, and a way to get back before your legs gave out on you, don’t think for a second I didn’t notice _that._ Honestly, I know she’d had a long day, but so had _you,_ you absurd man. Ah here we go - oh, Geralt, really, no White Honey _at all?_ No wonder you’re having such a rough go of it.

“Well, that and the wounds, naturally - don’t give me that face, I can sm… I can see the blood, really, it’s appalling, I’m ashamed _for_ you. Here, shift forward, let me see.”

Geralt shifted forward. Let the hands work at the buckles of his armour, let them lift it away piece by piece. Some stuck to the blood, and the voice hissed in sympathy. Fingers ran through Geralt’s hair, found more blood. 

“Well, lucky for you, we have just the thing here! Now this will sting, so please do try not to kick me anywhere too vital, and yes that _does_ include my manhood before you go giving me that look -”

The voice kept talking, but Geralt lost all control of his senses and mind as the pain in his leg shifted from burning to unbearable. His shout was hoarse, and he tried to wrench his leg back even as he toppled forward to be caught on a firm shoulder. It was awful, fucking _awful_ until it wasn’t. Until the pain eased so abruptly that he was breathless with it. He gasped, floundered, grabbed at the figure in front of him and refused to let go. Pushed his face into the shoulder, gulped for air.

That scent, that scent, he knew it; warm and heavy and not-quite-human.

“Dandelion?” He managed, slurred and slow. 

It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. He knew, and didn’t know how he knew. And yet -

Jaskier laughed.

“Well, not quite, but close enough, I think,” he said, and ran a careful hand back through Geralt’s hair. “And can I say what a relief it is to hear you using your words? You had me worried there, for a moment.”

“You - can’t -” Geralt tried to unravel his snarled thoughts and found himself doing nothing but pressing closer to Jaskier. 

“Oh? Barely coherent, and still trying to tell me what I can and can’t do; I see how it is, dearest,” Jaskier said, and the words didn’t match his voice, not at all. He sounded soft, in the way he did sometimes, when Geralt thought that maybe -

But that still didn’t explain the deeper-than-bone ache in his chest. Didn’t explain the way he clung, and shouted again, and gasped for breath whenever Jaskier tried to move away. Didn’t explain the sudden panic. He only knew that he couldn’t let Jaskier leave, couldn’t let him out of his sight for a moment, or he would - he -

The wound on his thigh would need stitches, he knew. His ribs should be strapped, at least for a couple of days. These were things he should let Jaskier do. It would only make his Viper grouch at him later, if he didn’t. 

That thought hurt, too, but it was an old hurt, and one that he could push past.

Those familiar hands traced lines down his cheeks, following the web of black veins. The callouses were - different. 

“Surely even with a part dose, it should have worked by now,” Jaskier murmured. Geralt blinked up at him, and could make out his features, could see the vibrant yellow of his doublet. It was a strange colour for a witcher to choose; too much a target, but it suited him well. 

Geralt tried to explain - that it hadn’t yet worked because the decoctions had been his own, and he didn’t have the same talent for them that had been beaten into Jaskier during training. They worked well enough to keep him alive, and that was all he had needed for a long time. He didn’t manage much more than an exhausted breath.

“I really do need to see to that leg of yours, as there’s nothing else I can do about the eyes for now,” Jaskier said into his hair. Geralt should - he should let go, as Jaskier needed him to.

He held on.

“Geralt -”

“Talk. Please.” He needed to hear his voice as he worked, needed to know him with all of his senses. And he didn’t really need to ask, to beg, because Jaskier was never quiet; except that sometimes he was, sometimes he would get a look on his face, and the music would stop as his hands went still on -

On his lute.

On his _fucking lute._

There wasn’t time to try and think around the starburst of pain in his skull, in his heart, before Jaskier was talking. Telling stories, rambling and soft, as Geralt’s hands loosened from the vice grip he’d had on fine silks - not clothes fit for a witcher, after all.

Geralt listened as his eyes slowly returned to their usual state, and he could watch Jaskier stitch muscle and then skin with deft hands. He knew he was staring at his long fingers and the pull of tendons, even as he tried to focus on the tales of fated lovers over the clamouring in his head.

Jaskier tied off the thread, and sat unmoving with his head bowed. Silence settled heavily over them, before he blew out a heaving breath and pushed himself to his feet.

The silence stayed as he pulled at Geralt's shirt, broken only by the disapproving click of his tongue when he passed his hands over Geralt's ribs, feeling for the break. Geralt hadn't said anything about it - hadn't needed to. Whether Jaskier was conscious of it or not, he would be able to hear the pained wheeze at the edge of each breath.

With his ribs supported and his leg no longer bleeding, Geralt let the last of his tension drain away. His head still ached, but the pain only radiated from the tender spot at the back of his skull and not from his eyes or tightly clamped jaw.

"Come, now, that'll have to do, I think," Jaskier said, and guided Geralt to lay down on the pallet. It was small, and musty - the house had been empty a couple of weeks, he now recalled. The young widow had been happy enough to let them stay there until the job was done, while she remained at her sister's home.

Geralt went easily enough, but didn't yet close his eyes. Instead, he watched as Jaskier puttered around, cleaning up after himself - he didn't look away until the bard began to strip down to his smallclothes. Even then, he listened closely to his movement across the dusty floor.

Eventually, Jaskier settled himself beside Geralt and tugged the blankets up over them both. The air was thin and cold, even for witchers, and Geralt didn't protest the closeness as he usually did. 

The smell was too much a comfort, and his body was far too heavy to move away. 

It was a moment of weakness, he told himself. In the morning, once he had slept, he would put his back to Jaskier, would put distance between them, would untangle his hand from Jaskier's searching grip. He wouldn't be so weak as to let it happen again.

(He would.

He was.

He did.)

  
  
  
  


The ledge is well sheltered from the worst of the wind, but Ciri still shivers and tucks herself deeper into his hold. Without even the weak warmth of the sun against the stone, the cold is truly fierce. Geralt hums softly, and pours her another cup of weak mulled wine. They watch the steam curl for a moment as her hands wrap around it, unwieldy in her thick gloves.

“Don’t drop it rascal, or I’ll drop you down after to look for it,” he says without any bite, and she laughs. He’d forgotten how much threats of being thrown delight children - the youngest apprentices used to line up for it, bouncing eagerly on their toes. Geralt had claimed it was to train their reflexes, and to get them used to falling properly for when a monster sent them tumbling to the ground. Vesemir had claimed he was too soft on them. 

It’s good to hear her laugh. Too often, Geralt wakes to the sounds of her screams; sometimes she’s aware enough to turn her face into a pillow to try and muffle the sound. Sometimes she’s still lost in whatever horrors paint her dreams, and nothing Geralt does can shake her from them.

On clear nights like this, he bundles her up, packs a small bag, and hefts her onto his back with a warning to hold tight - which she usually takes to mean yanking on his hair every few steps when she slips. He’ll clamber along the ramparts and scramble up a partially-crumbled outer wall, and finally settle them down in the remains of a tower. Most of it is gone now, but this nook was a favourite place to sit and meditate when he was a young man - seeing that it had survived the long years had unwound bands of tension across his chest he hadn’t known were there.

“It’s good that you and Jaskier made up. You were making everyone miserable,” Ciri says, staring intently out over the mountains. Geralt isn’t sure what she’s looking at - or for. He shifts slightly, and brushes one hand over her hair.

“I hear we have you to thank for that,” he says, and the smile on his face is indulgent. He’s lucky she can’t see him, tucked beneath his chin as she is.

“That’s okay. You’d have got there in the end,” she says, with such sure dignity that he has to press his lips together and hope she can’t feel the way his chest shakes with laughter. 

“Oh? And what makes you so sure?” He asks - and he is genuinely curious. In truth, Ciri barely knows them. Jaskier has told her stories, Geralt knows; he had talked almost incessantly as Geralt recovered, silent and surly. She had been at first furious, and then later curious, and even later delighted by Jaskier’s teasing of them both. But that doesn’t mean she _knows_ them the way she seems to think she does.

Her narrow shoulders almost reach her ears, she shrugs so hard.

“I don’t know. I just knew you would, but that it would be a lot faster if you had help. Like - like destiny.”

Geralt can’t help the way he stiffens at the word.

“Did you know,” he says, forcing his muscles to relax one by one. “That there are those who think you can read your destiny in the stars?” It isn’t her fault, he tells himself. She doesn’t understand just how much he hates the word, the very concept. 

Ciri squirms in his lap - she smells warm, and content.

“Mousesack used to say that!” She cries excitedly. “He tried to teach me, once, but grandmother found out and forbade it.” Geralt isn’t surprised. 

“That’s a shame,” Geralt says - because to her, it is. Mousesack had been dear to her, and although he doesn’t yet know the full story, he knows that _something_ happened when she was still running. It would have been a comforting memory for her, he thinks. “Maybe you can ask Yen if she’ll teach you - I don’t know if it is something she’s studied, but if not, she’ll probably know where to find out about it. In the meantime, I can at least show you how to use the stars to navigate - the Path doesn’t always take us down the best roads, and it’s important that you don’t get yourself lost.”

Ciri snorts at him - she's been spending too much time with Lambert, he thinks. No respect for their elders, either of them.

"Grandfather and Crach showed me how to do that years ago," she says dismissively. "They said that it would be a disgrace to be related to the Jarl of Skellige and not even know how to read the stars. I picked it up quicker than Cerys, too." 

He has no idea who Cerys is - only vaguely remembers Crach an Craite from the banquet and the brief times he's visited Skellige - but he hums and says, "of course you did, cub."

They are both quiet for a time. 

"I miss them," she says finally, and sniffles. Geralt offers her the corner of his cloak to wipe her nose, not sure what he can do besides hold her tighter. "Grandmother, and grandfather, and Mousesack, and even Martin and the boys from the square. I know they weren't - weren't really my friends, but -"

She breaks off, and tries to muffle her crying in her hand.

"Knowing something isn't always enough to stop you feeling it," Geralt says gently. Jaskier used to be fond of saying things like that; he's had to learn it for himself the hard way. He presses his forehead to her hair and aches for her. "And you aren't wrong to miss who you thought they were. Don't feel like you can't cry, or mourn them. There's not a soul in this castle who hasn't lost someone, Ciri - we understand."

She cries harder, shuffles around until she's curled sideways and can turn her face into his shirt. He takes her cup from her and sets it down carefully, before gathering her up.

"It's been months," she gasps, and he rocks her back and forth, in time with her heartbeat. "It's been months, Geralt, I don't - why am I -"

"You were surviving," he tells her. He's seen it before, in other witchers on the Path who couldn't let themselves slow and rest long enough for the pain to catch up to them; in the people he's saved, who had lived steeped in fear for so long that there had been no room for grief until the threat was gone. "And now you're safe, and you can let yourself think of them, and miss them. It's normal, cub. It's alright. You'll take as long as you take."

"It's not _fair,"_ she mutters, and a fresh wave of tears takes her.

There's nothing Geralt can do except agree, and wait until she cries herself out. It isn't the way he was taught to deal with such things as a boy - complaints of unfairness would have landed him with enough punishments to see just how unfair life could really get, even before the Trials, but he can't bring himself to do anything else. Ciri is - she's _his,_ and as far as he's concerned that means it's up to him how to handle this.

Exhaustion leaves her heavy in his arms, and though her breathing is still thick, he knows that she's on the verge of falling asleep. He moves her carefully, wraps her arms around his neck and nudges at her until she wakes enough to cling to him before climbing back down the wall.

There's a familiar scent on the air as he reaches the ground, and he's sure he can hear the distant echo of footsteps, but by the time he reaches their rooms, Jaskier's door is shut. Geralt tries not to think how he had found them - only tucks Ciri into her bed with the promise that if she calls for him, he'll hear. Or for anyone else, he adds after a moment of consideration.

"Even Jaskier? If I want him to sing to me?" She asks. "Grandfather used to sing to me when I couldn't sleep." Geralt lets himself smile at her, even as he feels the corners of his eyes pinch.

"Even Jaskier," he agrees, and stays with her until her breathing finally eases. 

  
  
  
  


Geralt recognised the scent of chaos layered thick over the house, and followed it swiftly through the kitchen. He didn’t know what she was playing at in this little town, and frankly he didn’t care. Jaskier sagged against his side, head lolling against his shoulder, and mumbled something incomprehensible against the skin of Geralt’s neck. He tightened his grip around Jaskier’s waist; turned just far enough to press his mouth against sweat-soaked hair without breaking his stride.

 _I just want some damn peace_ he had howled, and it was true. He wanted to be able to sleep without dreaming, wanted to be able to look at Jaskier without seeing all of the years that had slipped away between them in what felt like the blink of an eye. He wanted to be able to hold on to Jaskier for good - wanted him to remember all that they'd had, to welcome him back into the circle of his arms and never let go again. He wanted to be able to let him go. 

It didn't matter what Geralt wanted, he told himself fiercely, shaking his head. That was what had got them into this mess in the first place, after all - all that mattered was what Jaskier wanted, what made him happy.

Jaskier thought he would use his wish to do something about his child surprise. Perhaps that would have been the wiser thing to do, but the truth of it was, Geralt didn't know what he would've wished for if he'd managed to hold his tongue. He only knew that he couldn't continue as he had been, tearing himself apart with not knowing -

Smoke, thick and sickly-sweet billowed from beneath a heavy door, and Geralt shouldered his way through only to freeze on the threshold. It had been many years since he had seen Yennefer, admittedly, but even so he didn't know that there was much that could have prepared him for the swathes of naked skin, for the suddenly overpowering smell of sex and chaos on the air. Against his chest, his medallion was almost hot enough to burn. Jaskier’s breath hissed, tight and painful, dragging Geralt back to himself - he scanned the room and found her, perched high and regal at the end of the room. She looked utterly unconcerned by the heavy, suggestive magic that Geralt could feel coiling tighter and tighter around his limbs and the back of his mind; but of course she did. It was her magic.

“Yen!” Geralt called, adjusting his grip on Jaskier as it slipped against the smooth fabric at his hip. The sound Jaskier made was confused - he met Geralt’s eyes as his own began to glaze. He would be almost as resistant to Yen’s magic as Geralt, were his body not already battling the effects of Geralt’s idiotic wish. Now, instead, his mind would be pulled about in all directions, pained and hungry and _desperate_.

Geralt hardened his heart and turned his face away, teeth bared.

“Yennefer!” He snarled. Her expression, even half-hidden by her black mask, was lofty as she deigned to glance his way - chin tipped up and eyes hooded. She pushed herself slowly to her feet and let her gaze sweep over him once, painted lips twisting into something that could have been a smile had there been any humour in it at all. Jaskier’s knees began to buckle, and Geralt twisted sharply to brace him against his hip - Yennefer’s eyes tracked the movement and settled on Jaskier’s face. 

She froze. Her lips parted around a soundless word - Geralt heard the hiss of air and the sudden racing of her heart. 

“Yen, _please,_ ” he said, and was only distantly aware of how his ragged voice tore from his throat. “I’ll explain, but Jaskier needs help, _please_.”

For a long, long second, she remained frozen. Then, with a voice that cracked like a whip, sharp across the room with no need of magic to make it carry, she snapped,

“ _Ragamuffin!”_

Instantly, the weight of her magic shifted against Geralt’s shoulders - Jaskier’s eyes cleared even as blood bubbled from his mouth. All around them was a flurry of motion as dazed townspeople grabbed whatever cloth they could from chairs and curtains and fled the room - Yennefer gestured abruptly with one hand and there were cries of fear but Geralt didn’t look to see what she had done. He pressed his forehead against Jaskier’s and hoped it was at least some comfort.

Yen’s hands settled around Jaskier’s biceps and accepted some of his weight. Even to Geralt, her expression was unfathomable - her eyes flashed, and she nodded seemingly to herself. Long fingers pressed briefly into Jaskier’s arms, before she lifted one hand and rested it against the side of his throat. Her mouth worked around the Elder speech, always so much more fluid from her tongue than anyone else Geralt had met, and Jaskier’s eyes rolled back into his head. Geralt’s heart stilled until he realised that Jaskier’s breathing had eased; it no longer caught, wet and rattling, at the back of his throat, though even in unconsciousness he flinched as Geralt lifted him into his arms.

“This way,” she said, and swept past, trusting him to follow. The stairs she led him up were steep and narrow, but they opened into several large rooms that Geralt assumed had once belonged to the mayor of Rinde, and now housed Yennefer for as long as she felt like staying.

Geralt knelt over the bed to lay Jaskier against the pillows, and shifted back only far enough to let Yen see him - one hand he kept resting just below Jaskier’s knee, to feel the reassuring warmth of him. She set to work immediately - her chaos swelled again to fill the room, and the oppressive heat and weight of it struck Geralt like a new-forged hammer to the chest. He didn’t move. He had endured worse for far less.

"Decades without so much as a word from you," she said, trailing a hand across Jaskier's throat - Geralt watched as a path of light followed her fingers and began to spiderweb its way beneath his skin. "And now this? I hope you know, witcher, that I would have killed a lesser man for such a slight."

“I did expect some terrible retribution,” Geralt said, his heart a little more steady now that he had delivered Jaskier to her skilled hands. “And you know I would never ask this of you as a favour - I’ll pay you, whatever you ask.”

Yen snorted, a throaty and indelicate sound; so at odds with the immaculate appearance she went to such pains to present the world. There had always been a part of Geralt that had loved that - loved seeing her as she was, untempered and unrestrained. She had still been serving at Aedirn’s court when they met, and for years after she had clung to the decorum and poise Aretuza so often taught in the place of respect.

“First you appear unannounced on my doorstep with a dead man after years without contact, and now you _insult_ me?” Her voice was light, her face like steel. “You can tell me everything and that will be payment enough, for now.”

“I’d better make it good then,” he muttered, and took no offence when Yen laughed at him. He’d never been the storyteller between them.

“More importantly, _he_ had better hope you have a good explanation,” she said, tapping one long nail against the side of Jaskier’s throat - Geralt swallowed back a growl. He was being absurd, he told himself. It was Yen - there were a great many things he wouldn’t dream of trusting her with, but Jaskier’s life wasn’t one of them. “ _He_ didn’t have to deal with your moping, or listen for the rumours of you chasing his ghost up and down the pissing continent because you never bothered to stop and check in with me yourself. If you tell me he was just laying low all this time or some such shit, it won’t just be his lovely voice he’ll have to worry about.”

“Don’t, Yen,” Geralt said, unable to meet her eyes. Shame settled across his shoulders in a familiar blanket. “Be mad at me if you like - I treated you poorly, true enough. But don’t blame him, he has no idea. He doesn’t remember, not - not any of it.”

“Well don’t leave me in suspense,” she snapped after a moment. “The most difficult part is done with - I can listen and cast, as you well know. Tell me, and leave nothing out."

So he told her - of losing Jaskier, of finding him again, of watching the man dance across his Path without any notion of who Geralt was, of who _he_ was. Told her of the long nights spent awake, watching Jaskier’s sleeping face because he thought that if he shut his eyes even long enough to blink, the man might disappear again. Told her of the things he said, sometimes, that could so briefly kindle hope in Geralt’s chest - told her of the awful blankness that overtook him other times and extinguished it.

Aside from the occasional cutting remark about Geralt’s sense and lack thereof, Yennefer listened attentively. Her mouth twisted when he finally gave voice to the fears that he’d held cradled in his chest for so long - that he was seeing something that wasn’t there. That any friendship Jaskier offered him now was the result of little more than curiosity - that one day he would again tire of the Path, would turn to leave and not look back.

That he would forget again. 

Then she couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“And you didn’t _once,”_ she hissed, “in _over a decade_ think to come to me about this?”

Despite himself, Geralt bristled - it was only the warmth of Jaskier’s hand, now gripped between his palms, that kept him settled.

“I know you think me a fool, but give me some credit,” he snarled back. Jaskier didn’t stir. Geralt told himself that was a good thing; it meant that the healing trance was doing its job. “Do you think in all this time I sat by and waited for something to happen? I couldn’t _find_ you Yen, you went to ground so well Jaskier would have been proud, and by the time I started hearing some promising rumours _anywhere_ it had been years! I spoke to mages, I spoke to druids, and they all said the same thing!”

“That for a memory spell to have lasted this long and still be so strong, it might be too dangerous for his mind to break it,” Yen said, and then was silent for a time, watching as her magic worked its way just beneath Jaskier's skin.

She sighed, finally, and stood, brushing at her skirts as though any dirt would dare cling to them.

"He'll sleep until morning, at least," she said, fixing him with a meaningful stare. "Plenty of time to bathe. I'm fairly sure I can guess the age of this Roach from the smell of you alone. I hardly think Jaskier's nose will thank you if he wakes and you haven't done anything about it. Mine certainly isn't, now."

"I'm not leaving him, Yen," Geralt replied. She raised an elegant brow at him.

"You doubt my capabilities?" She asked, amusement colouring her words and cheeks. He didn't reply - anything he could say would be a mistake, he was sure. She laughed a little, incredulous. "Or my intentions, maybe? As though I would be stupid enough to try and entangle myself in your nonsense again?"

She'd never had any problems entangling herself in his nonsense before - but then, that had been a long, long time ago.

"I'm not leaving him," he repeated.

Yennefer rolled her eyes and waved a dismissive hand, as though Geralt didn't know just how much effort it cost her to conjure up both tub and water in the corner of the room.

"You'll have to heat it yourself," she said as he pulled off his shirt and draped it over the back of the chair. She eyed it disdainfully. "I trust you can manage that with one of your little signs? I'll find you something to wear." Knowing better than to argue, Geralt only shrugged and sat to tug at his boots. Yen's gaze flicked from him to Jaskier once more before she nodded to herself and strode from the room.

The bath was a welcome relief; even more so that he could listen to Jaskier's easy breaths as he scrubbed mud and river water from his arms. On the inside of his forearm, the bloody line stung as he ran a cloth over it. He stared at it, and scrubbed harder.

Bad enough to have Jaskier scolding him for trying to unearth a djinn - he hadn't mentioned to Yen that he'd been searching for one deliberately. 

By the time he stood, the water had started to cool, and Yennefer sat by Jaskier's side, a pile of clean clothes left on the floor beside the tub. They clung as Geralt dragged them over his damp skin, and he pulled at the hem of the leather shirt. He had never really had cause to question Yen's taste in clothing before - had, in fact, appreciated it just fine for many years.

"I thought that would suit you nicely," she said, and where once the words would have sounded flirtatious, now they were gently mocking. "No doubt your darling Viper will appreciate the effort when he wakes."

"Yen," Geralt cautioned. She huffed at him.

"Yes, yes, you've insisted several times that I'm not to mention anything that might pique that boundless nosiness of his," she said, and scowled. "However ridiculous such a request might be. And Geralt? So that we're clear? It _is_ fucking ridiculous. Frankly, you've been handed an impossible opportunity on a golden platter, and the fact that you are going _out of your way_ to refuse it is beyond me."

"He's _happy_ ," Geralt snapped. He slumped down beside Jaskier and picked lightly at the blood on his shirt. It would drive him insane when he woke, he was sure. "This life is all he ever wanted, and now he has it, and he's happy, and that's all _I_ wanted. I don't fucking expect _you_ to understand."

Regret clawed its way up his throat even as he said the words, but he didn't take them back, and he wouldn't apologise for them. It wasn't their way, and he knew better than to think that Yen would accept any apology he could offer her.

She watched him shrewdly.

"If you think that's all he wanted then you're a far bigger fool than I than I took you for, and trust me, that _is_ saying something."

Geralt frowned, but found he had no answer. He turned to Jaskier, who always had an answer for everything, and frowned harder when it felt like trying to move underwater. His mouth opened, to try and call Jaskier’s name, and the taste of lilacs and gooseberries coated his tongue until he thought he might choke on it. From a long way away, Yennefer still watched him - her voice echoed, and he couldn’t separate out the words. He curled his lip, blinked slowly -

Opened his eyes in a cell.

He knew the feel of Yennefer’s chaos, gradually releasing him from her hold. Granted, the context was new. 

Staggering to his feet, Geralt tugged at the restraints around his wrists and was unsurprised to find they held fast. Small towns often didn’t have much money to spare for the upkeep of their cells - more than once he’d managed to pull his chains from the wall.

“I hope your rampage was well worth it,” Chireadan spat. Geralt closed his eyes and tried to cast his mind back, to the blank space of time between the mayor’s house and here, but found nothing. Even the memory of Yennefer’s magic was rapidly weakening, leaving him dizzy and confused. It felt like waking from sleep, but he was no less exhausted than he had been before.

“What did she have me do?” He asked, but barely listened as the elf listed off his crimes, instead testing the bars over the windows, and then the doors. Yennefer wouldn’t have had him kill anyone, that much he was at least sure of. If nothing else, he would be able to smell the death clinging to him.

“Why on earth would you enlist the mage’s help after my warning?” Chireadan asked, voice growing louder and quicker with each terrified word. 

“Because I was desperate,” Geralt sighed, letting his chin drop to his chest. Every part of him felt so unbearably heavy. Judging by the weak light that filtered down to the cells, it was already morning. Which meant that if Yen’s estimations had been right, Jaskier would wake soon - could already be awake, alone in a strange house with a strange sorceress.

A strange sorceress that had used magic to drive Geralt from his side knowing that he would never go willingly. A strange sorceress that knew entirely too much about him, and had no reason to keep her word to Geralt that she wouldn’t try anything, damn it, _damn it!_

“I have to get back,” he said, and heaved himself back upright. “Fuck! I have to -”

Chireadan’s hands moved to hover over his shoulders, perhaps ready to push him back down, when the door opened. Geralt looked up and swore - he recognised the intricate armour, built more for decoration than protection, and the bald head that gleamed almost as bright under the torchlight.

Geralt didn’t have _time for this._

He barely waited for the first blow to land - felt it break his nose, and hissed his wish through a mouthful of blood. It didn’t occur to him until after to check that the man even had keys to his shackles - but someone like that was sure to keep copies on his person at all times. Geralt had run across more than a few men like him up and down the continent.

He freed himself and blindly tossed the keys to Chireadan. If nothing else, he didn’t deserve to remain locked up; not when he hadn’t done anything except try to love Yennefer. A foolish pursuit, maybe, but not one that Geralt could blame him for.

Whether it was out of misplaced gratitude for not simply leaving him, or simply fear of what Geralt might do to Yennefer when he caught up to her, the elf followed him from the cells and back to the house. It wasn't far - Geralt's muscles screamed their protest as he pushed himself to a run. People muttered and drew back as he passed, but no-one tried to stop him. He stormed down streets he couldn't remember seeing in daylight and quickened his pace when he drew close to the house and was almost forced to his knees by the wave of Yen's magic that shook the house to its foundations.

"Geralt! Oh thank the gods, I might live to see another day! We need to _go,_ come on, where's Roach, we can be in the next town by midday if we hurry -"

Jaskier's heartbeat was as fast as a human's, and the stench of his fear hung over him like a cloud. He was breathing hard, but the breaths were deep and easy; painless. The terrible swelling at his neck was gone as though it had never existed - if it weren't for the blood still staining his mouth and chemise, Geralt could almost believe that he was fleeing from the spouse of an ill-advised lover.

"Jaskier " Geralt started, and found the words dried up in his mouth. Jaskier was already trying to hurry by him; Geralt caught him by the sleeve and reeled him back in. Eyes wide, Jaskier staggered and caught himself with a hand to Geralt's chest.

"You're alright," he muttered - held Jaskier's face between his hands and tilted his head back to examine the traces of magic there. He could see how Jaskier's pulse jumped, the way his throat worked as he swallowed, and couldn't bring himself to let go. The hand on Geralt’s chest flexed; Jaskier’s fingers slipped over the smooth leather until he managed to hook them over the collar, and he began to tug insistently.

“Not, uh, not that I’m, ha, complaining or anything, dear, but I really think we should be moving away from here. Um, but let’s, let’s feel free to put a pin in this, return to it post-haste in a location with significantly fewer mad witches and houses that might come down around our ears, yes?” As he babbled, Jaskier pulled Geralt along in his wake, towards the cluster of outbuildings that he could only hope still held Roach and his bags.

“Mad witches?” Geralt asked cautiously. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know what Yen was trying to achieve here - it seemed like the sort of backwater town with self-important local officials that she could find anywhere on the continent. The scent of her magic spiked on the wind again, and Geralt flinched but didn’t pull himself out of Jaskier’s grip. She would neither ask for nor appreciate his interference; she never had.

“Oh, you know; reeked of magic, terrifying eyes, was painting an amphora on her abdomen,”Jaskier said, free hand waving demonstrably.

Geralt stopped dead.

“She wants to be the vessel,” he said, twisting to stare up at the tower as his heart sank. “To be more powerful.”

“What, you _know_ this woma - of course you know this woman.” Jaskier sounded at once exasperated and desperately afraid. 

“It’ll kill her,” Geralt murmured, and he - he couldn’t lose Yen. For all of their faults, they had known each other so long that the idea of the continent existing without her somewhere on it was unfathomable to him. She would destroy herself, and Geralt would be left, again, to mourn someone that he knew he could have protected. He started to stride back towards the open door.

“And that’s a terrible shame, I’m sure, but if you go in there she’ll probably kill _you!”_ Jaskier snapped, jogging to keep up, and it was almost funny. He’d always said that Yennefer would be the death of Geralt some day.

“I can’t let her die,” Geralt said, and sidestepped as Chireadan tried to catch hold of his sleeve. It left him standing close enough to Jaskier to feel the heat radiating from him - close enough for Jaskier to throw out an arm to block his path. He hesitated, long enough for Chireadan to study his face and draw back.

“You have to go in there, don’t you? I recognise the look - I know how you feel.”

“You don’t know fuck all,” Geralt snapped, rapidly losing all patience. Chireadan thought that Geralt was as gone over Yen as he was - that much, at least, he’d managed to work out from his ramblings in the cell. Another shockwave of magic prickled over his skin and left his medallion trembling against his chest. There wasn’t time to correct the elf’s ridiculous assumptions - the more time he wasted out here, the more time Yen had to do something she couldn’t take back. The more chances she had to put them all in danger.

He brushed past Jaskier, and didn’t wait to see if the bard followed him. Hoped that he wouldn’t. Wished - _didn’t wish_ \- that he would.  
  
  


He wouldn’t let himself think of the things the djinn had offered until much later. It was better like this, he told himself. There was no point in wishing for impossible things. 

  
  
  
  


“What did you do? I was so close, I nearly had it!” Every word was a blow to his pounding head. Geralt struggled to sit up, vaguely nauseous after tumbling through such a hasty portal. Fuck, he hated them.

“Mm, I could tell,” he grumbled, dropping his head to rest between his knees in an unforgivable display of weakness. “The whole situation felt very controlled. Especially when the roof started coming down on our heads. I saved your life, Yen.”

“As I saved yours,” she hissed back. “You and Jaskier! And what have I got in return?”

“An excuse to leave this shit town?” Geralt tried.

“It wasn’t a shit town, it was a fine town until you came along! I had a plan!”

“A plan?” Nothing about Yennefer’s position here felt planned, at least not to Geralt. “What _plan,_ what were you trying to achieve here, Yen?”

“That’s none of your concern.” Her tone brooked no argument; once that would have been enough to stop him.

“Of course it’s my concern,” he sighed, and finally lifted his head, met her eyes. “I’ve been a fucking terrible friend to you, but I would still call us friends, if you’d allow. Which means I do actually give half a shit about you. I don’t want to see you destroy yourself over whatever this is.”

Though her expression didn’t change at all, something in her scent softened.

“You know very well there are things worth destroying yourself for,” she said at last. Geralt had no answer for that. He pressed his lips into a thin line and hummed.

At the edge of his hearing, Jaskier’s voice caught his attention - he turned to the door, but it sounded as though he was still safely outside with the elf. His sudden shift didn’t escape Yennefer’s notice.

“He fought me almost as hard as you,” she said. Her voice was perhaps the kindest he had ever heard it. She tugged at the shoulders of her dress before looking up at him carefully, and laughed once. “Unconscious and still healing, and he fought me.”

Geralt’s lips peeled back from his teeth - the glare that she levelled him with was unimpressed to say the least.

“What did you do, Yennefer?” The sound came from so deep in his chest he was surprised she could understand him. “You said you wouldn’t fuck about with his mind, what did you _do_?” Jaskier had seemed well enough outside, but Geralt hadn’t had time to check him over for any more subtle damage. Yen rolled her eyes and waved a dismissive hand at him. 

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” she snorted. “Only looked. Do you want to know what I found or not? Never mind, don’t answer, you’ll only say something disgustingly noble and self-sacrificing. I didn’t do too much, don’t worry, his mind is safe - from me, at least. But Geralt -” her voice was solemn. Yen had never been one to offer physical contact unless it was of some benefit to herself, but she reached out to touch Geralt’s shoulder. “The spell? It isn’t being maintained by any mage; it’s tied to _Jaskier._ ”

“And so? What does that mean?” Geralt asked. There were footsteps, now, soft against the flagstones and quickly coming closer.

“It means that he’s the reason it’s still so strong,” she said. If Geralt didn’t know her so well, he’d think she sounded apologetic. “Most of the time, memory spells aren’t designed to last; not with the recipient’s mind intact, anyway, which isn’t usually the primary concern. They’re weak, and so they’ll be tied to whoever cast them, or something of their choosing. Without a mage to keep adjusting them and feeding altered memories in, they fall apart.”

“And take the victim’s sanity with them,” Geralt surmised. Yen’s mouth thinned, and she nodded.

“If they’re lucky,” she agreed. “The fact that the mage was even able to anchor the spell to Jaskier’s mind instead of theirs -”

Geralt closed his eyes.

“If he could resist you when he was unconscious -” he muttered, and trailed off. Yen didn’t say anything; she didn’t have the chance, before the footsteps rounded the door and Geralt was tackled back down by an armful of Jaskier. Without thinking, he let himself be pushed - curled his arms around Jaskier’s waist, pressed his nose into his neck, and tried to empty his howling mind. He couldn’t hear what Jaskier was saying. If it weren’t for the soft vibrations he could feel where their chests pressed together, he wouldn’t know he was saying anything at all.

If the spell had been tied to Jaskier’s mind, Yennefer hadn’t said, then that meant Jaskier hadn’t fought it. It meant that, even now, his mind worked to keep it in place.

It meant that the sliver of hope Geralt had been holding onto all this time had been in vain. It meant that this had been something that Jaskier chose - something that he continued to choose, consciously or not. It meant that however happy he had been with Geralt before, he was happier as they were now.

And that, Geralt knew, was something that he couldn’t wish away.

  
  
  
  


If it weren't for the lingering red puffiness around her eyes, Geralt would never have been able to tell that Ciri had spent so much of the night before before trying not to cry as Jaskier worked his way through his admittedly impressive repertoire of songs suitable for a child. It’s become a habit, that she calls for one of them every few nights; Geralt reads from one of the bestiaries until she drifts off, and Jaskier sings the songs she remembers from court. 

Jaskier, naturally, looks as fresh as he ever does. He has one leg slung easily over Eskel’s lap and is pointing out the chords he uses most often as Eskel fumbles his way through a couple of simple songs. His laughter is soft, but to witcher ears it echoes around the courtyard as Geralt tries to instruct Ciri on proper footwork with Lambert's dubious help.

It would be much easier with Vesemir at his side, he thinks; but the old witcher had begged off training today, claiming that he was sick of watching them make all the mistakes he thought he'd beaten out of them before they first left Kaer Morhen.

“Again,” he says as Ciri tries to take an extra half-step forward and throws off her balance so much that she almost loses her grip on the practice sword. “Again,” as she leans too far back and her swing goes wide. “Again.” They’ve been at it for hours now, letting Ciri take breaks to rest and sip slowly at her water while Geralt and his brothers take turns trying to whack each other with staves, and practice swords, and real swords. At one point, early in the morning, Geralt had glanced over to see Lambert tossing dummy bombs at Eskel, who was using his staff to bat them away.

It was then that he’d called Lambert over to help him, which probably explains why he isn’t putting a great deal of effort in.

He winces before he can stop himself as Ciri stumbles and almost trips Lambert. Jaskier's laughter turns from muted chuckles to a flat-out guffaw.

Ciri whirls to face him, and Geralt’s eyes narrow as he watches the quick one-two-three of her movement, feet perfectly placed.

“It’s not _funny!”_ She yells. Though he’s never seen just what she can do with her voice, Eskel flinches back a little. Even Lambert looks uncomfortable at the volume, but Jaskier just presses his lips together in a vain attempt to look serious.

“Of course not, princess!” He calls back, and smothers his grin. “That’s why I’m not laughing at you!”

She storms up to where he sits, sprawled and comfortable, and all but throws her sword at him. He doesn't even have the decency to look surprised when he snags it out of the air. It’s small and lightweight, almost comically so, but he twists his wrist a few times to test the balance of it anyway - looks up at her with a brow raised when he apparently finds it to be satisfactory. As though Vesemir would allow anything less, even for a child's blade.

“You show me how, if it’s so funny and easy!” Ciri fumes, and turns with all of the outraged grace of a princess to sit beside Eskel with her arms folded.

Geralt turns to watch Jaskier, who stares down at the sword in his hand. It's smaller than his old shortswords and weighted differently, designed to train the young apprentices to be used to a longsword as they grew; but then, Jaskier had always adapted well. When he finally looks up, still smiling - smaller, harder, forced - Geralt’s breath catches. His grip tightens automatically, and he feels himself slip into a defensive stance. From behind him, Lambert mutters something about not wanting to be in the middle of this, and slinks away, but Geralt doesn’t dare turn to watch. He only has eyes for Jaskier.

His Viper has no memories and is decades out of practice, but Geralt would never know it as he hurtles across the practice ground on feet so light they barely touch the ground. Even before their blades clash, Geralt can feel the beginnings of an answering smile stretching, laughter bubbling in his throat. His weight shifts back with the force of the blow, stronger than any human; he rocks forward to push back against Jaskier, takes a step forward and feints to the side as Jaskier lashes out, faster than thought.

It’s familiar as a dance, as a song. Geralt knows every step, every line, and so does Jaskier as long as he doesn’t slow down to wonder why. So Geralt doesn’t let him.

For every step Jaskier takes forward, Geralt is already twisting out of his shorter reach and leaping back in to find that Jaskier has ducked under his guard, sending him scrambling back. Every time Jaskier thinks he’s close enough to land a blow, Geralt has already gripped his arm and pulled him off balance, or swapped hands too fast to track and blocked what should have been an easy hit.

“Come on dear Wolf, I can’t be harder to hit than a griffin, or a wyvern,” Jaskier grins. “Shouldn’t you have me on my back by now?”

“Melitele’s holy tits, I thought we’d been spared this,” Geralt hears Lambert grumble, but he doesn’t pay him any mind - only slaps Jaskier’s free hand away with the flat of his blade as he pivots.

“You’re a much smaller target,” Geralt says, like he’s genuinely considering the question. Jaskier laughs once, quick and breathless, and uses the moment of distraction to slide under Geralt’s guard again and tap his side.

“First blood!” He crows, and then immediately shouts a protest as Geralt lands a quick blow to the meat of his thigh. It’s light enough that he must barely feel it - but that isn’t the point. Jaskier always takes it so personally when he isn’t quick enough to guard against Geralt. As though he’s somehow failed his training - he used to tease that he would have to start relying on brute force if Geralt was going to insist on being faster than him.

There was a point to this, Geralt recalls - he’d been trying to explain to Ciri how to properly balance her weight to easily move in any direction. He rolls up to the balls of his feet, and knows that his smile takes on a wild edge from the answering gleam in Jaskier’s eyes.

If they were quick before, it was nothing compared to now. There’s no time to recover between blows, no time to catch their breath. Geralt has the advantage of experience and strength - Jaskier has his speed and his instincts. They’ve always been well matched, but this, after so long, is like finally taking a breath when he hadn’t known he was drowning. The rest of the world fades to nothing but a faint hum. Geralt locks eyes with Jaskier and doesn’t dare look away.

The training ground is uneven, deliberately littered with rubble in places, but his feet find their way with ease. He watches Jaskier, and knows where he will lunge, where he will be just in time for Geralt to leap forward. They’re close enough to share half a breath before they’re moving again - their scents mingle in the air between them, exertion and adrenaline and delight. It’s a combination Geralt knows well, one that he’s missed for so long he’d forgotten he was missing it. Jaskier’s head tips as he sucks in a breath, and from the way he goes momentarily still, Geralt knows he’s caught it too.

He steps lightly forward, and ducks under Geralt’s swing, loses his footing as Geralt sweeps his leg from beneath him. Jaskier staggers, and Geralt presses his advantage for the second it takes him to realise that Jaskier is laughing again. Immediately he tries to backtrack and is just barely too slow - the edge of his sword slides against Jaskier’s ribs, but there’s a familiar weight pressed against his gut that says he would bleed out first. 

His arms shake and his feet are frozen in place - Jaskier is pressed close, the hot line of him trembling with every heaving breath. Geralt can feel it gusting across his skin. He licks his lips, and Jaskier’s eyes track the movement.

He has no idea how long they've been fighting, but their shadows are longer than he remembers them being. It's easy, still, to lose time with Jaskier.

Sweat drips from Jaskier’s hair, down his throat. Geralt’s stomach twists, and he feels like he can barely fit in his suddenly burning skin. He can still remember exactly how Jaskier’s skin smells when he’s pressed against it; can remember trailing his mouth along his collarbones to taste the salt that gathered there.

Geralt sways forward. Distantly, he can hear shouting, but it may as well be coming from another mountain for all he cares. His vision has been swallowed up by Jaskier, and his bright eyes, and the curve of his smile.

“Don’t tell me that’s it? Where’s that witcher stamina I’ve heard so much about?” Jaskier pants. 

“Some of us haven’t been sat around on our arses all day,” Geralt says, and he’s still laughing a little. Jaskier opens his mouth to reply, no doubt something cutting about Geralt’s own backside, when Ciri’s shriek finally pierces the veil that’s descended over them. Geralt jerks back, whips around, and finally realises that the shouting had been Eskel and Lambert. They’ve drawn their swords and are staring through the open gateway at the end of the courtyard. Out past the edge of the keep’s wards.

The prickling tightness over Geralt’s skin doesn’t fade and he curses himself for not realising what it meant sooner. He breaks into a run, in time to see a portal shudder to life just beyond the wards.

Jaskier is a half step behind him, and he pulls Ciri close as Geralt takes point. He curses himself for leaving his own weapons in his room - the training sword will break bone, but that may not be good enough against Nilfgaard’s mages. He forms aard with his free hand and holds it ready, breath still coming quick and shallow. Adrenaline floods his system, and he forces his pupils open further, straining to see into the lopsided portal. 

He takes three quick steps forward as it ripples, and stops dead when two familiar figures stagger through. Behind him, he can hear Jaskier’s breath leave him all at once, a single sound like he’s been punched in the gut. Ciri fists her hand in the back of Geralt’s shirt and presses close as Yennefer releases the portal and looks up with an exhausted but wry smile.

“There had better be vodka somewhere in this shithole of yours!” She calls, and collapses to her knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See if you can figure out where I originally ended this chapter before deciding I didn't want to be hunted for sport!
> 
> Come scream at me on tumblr, I'm @theaceace. There were a lot of half-formed scenes that didn't make the cut and I would love to rant about them


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look we can all agree that most of 2020 has been a write-off, so when you think about it like that, it really hasn't been that long at all since the last update, right? Right?? 
> 
> Thank you to everyone in the barthroom, and especially Kim for laughing at my bad doc titles and by turns metaphorically spritzing me with water and cheering me on when I angst at 2am
> 
> (You also may have noticed that the chapter count went up again, and you may think to yourself that's because there's more to the story than first planned and you'd be partly right, but mostly I'm just bad at maths)
> 
> To everyone in the comments that wished me well or has also been having a rough go of it recently: I read them, I love you very much, thank you all and I'm glad this story means so much to a lot of people. We're on the home stretch of the story if nothing else my dears
> 
> And on a less serious note I have spent far too much time staring at this chapter and far too little editing it and it probably shows, YEET

"Fuck," Geralt mutters - Eskel and Lambert turn to glance at him with wild eyes, fear souring the air around them. He shakes his head once, and turns to kneel before Ciri. They both move away from him then, towards the sorceresses - if Geralt thought there was a threat, he wouldn't turn his back, no matter how well he trusts his brothers to protect them. One hand still clenched tight around the hilt of his training sword, he runs the other back over her hair, and hopes that she can't feel the minute tremors running through him.

She stares at him, irises ringed with white, jaw set. Her heart is beating so fast Geralt imagines it could fly right out of her chest.

"I need you to get Vesemir, tell him to prepare a room for healing. Can you do that for me, cub?" He waits until she nods, and presses a rough kiss against her head. "Brave girl. Go on, now, go!" Without a word or a whimper, she’s gone. Geralt’s so proud of her he can barely stand it.

Behind him, Eskel and Lambert approach the sorceresses, swift but cautious. Geralt wants to shout that there’s no point; even from here, he can catch the fading scent of Yen’s magic on the mountain wind. He knows that it’s her, and trusts that she wouldn’t have come here if it would put them - put _Ciri_ \- in danger. No matter how desperate she is.

No matter how much blood he can smell.

At his side, Jaskier stands frozen - his gaze stays fixed, past where Eskel kneels with Yennefer, past Lambert’s scowl as he lifts Triss and holds her tight to his chest, to the place the portal stood. Now that Ciri is gone - _away from the threat_ \- his tenuous hold on his composure is slipping. His breaths come too fast, and Geralt can see how he lifts his head, nostrils flared wide to catch the scent of Yen's magic. One hand still holds Ciri's sword - small and blunt and useless. The other flits over his hip, to his side, to his shoulder, grasping for weapons he hasn't carried for decades.

Geralt curses fiercely under his breath.

Although he doesn't turn to look, Jaskier must hear him; he begins to shake. 

"Jaskier," Geralt says, not daring yet to reach out. At the sound of Geralt's voice, he makes a tight sound, high in the back of his throat. Distantly, Geralt is aware of Yen's eyes burning a hole in his back. "Jaskier, look at me."

It takes several seconds for Jaskier to turn his face towards Geralt, and the time drags painfully until he can catch his eyes. Geralt doesn't know what Jaskier is seeing, but for a moment he's sure it isn't him. Then -

"Geralt? How - the portal, it isn't -"

One measured step is all it takes to close the distance between them, but Geralt doesn't risk any more than clasping a hand around Jaskier's arm to stop its restless wavering.

"Yen couldn't portal inside the keep - the wards held fast," Geralt says, quick and low. "And she only managed this much because I told her the location years ago. She wouldn't have come here if she thought it would endanger us, and she wouldn't have come here if she had a choice; you know she's too proud for that. Whatever has happened, we're still safe here, I swear it." Jaskier shudders, and finally nods. His face is still pinched, every line of his body so tight that Geralt aches in sympathy. He wants nothing more than to pull him into the circle of his arms; to run his hands across his shoulders and down his back until the tension bleeds away with the smell of his fear.

But Jaskier can't stay out here; even now, Geralt can see the way his gaze starts to drift back, towards the gate. And Geralt can't go. Whatever brought Yennefer here, he needs to hear it from her _now._

"Go after Ciri," he says - begs. Jaskier's focus snaps back to him. Geralt persists. "She's scared, and she'll be alone until this is dealt with. Please, Jaskier; she trusts you, she likes you. She'll feel safer with you there."

Geralt sees when his words sink in - Jaskier swallows heavily and nods. He closes his eyes and sways into Geralt's space until the warmth of his skin is enough to soothe the static of the wards still lifting the hair on the back of Geralt's neck.

"We'll be right behind you," Geralt says. Jaskier nods again, and turns to follow after Ciri.

Geralt watches him go, watches him disappear through the heavy doors and lets himself take a few deep, steadying breaths before he turns to face Yennefer.  
  
  


"You feel it, don't you?" Villentretenmerth - then Borch Three Jackdaws - had said. "That hole inside you. That ache that won't heal, that burning in your mind that keeps you awake at night.

"Come with me," he had said. "I can show you what you're missing."

"I know what I'm missing," Geralt had said, and he hadn't noticed the careful way Jaskier watched them. Hadn't noticed the tilt of Borch's body, or the flicker of his eyes. He had assumed that the old man - the dragon - spoke to him alone.

Later, he would think back, and he would wonder.

  
  
  
  


Yennefer stands unaided beside Eskel, though she takes Geralt's offered arm as soon as he is close enough. Eskel wrings his hands for a moment before he moves to Lambert's side to intervene in what seems to have quickly devolved into hissed insults - Lambert - and quick, if pained retorts - Triss. Geralt emphatically doesn't want to know how Lambert managed to get himself so worked up in the space of a minute.

They make their slow way across the courtyard - Yen leans almost all of her weight on Geralt, but from the set of her shoulders she could as easily have asked him to escort her to a banquet. Now that he's closer, he can smell that very little of the blood belongs to either sorceress, and it eases something in his chest.

"Was that her?" Yennefer asks, staring hard at the door to the keep as though it holds all of the secrets of the spheres. "Your child surprise?"

Geralt hums a little and adjusts his hold so that he can keep half an eye on her as they walk. She's shaking lightly, but her grip is strong. 

"That's Ciri," he says, and then belatedly tacks on, "she's been excited to meet you."

Yen blinks, her face blank for a split second.

"You told her about me," she says, and if she were anyone other than Yennefer, he might have thought it was a hesitant question. As it is, she sounds perhaps a little amused.

"Like it or not, your destiny is bound to mine, and mine to hers," Geralt says; they've known each other long enough that she can hear the trace of an apology in his voice that he would never dare speak aloud to her. "So following that, your destiny must be bound to hers. And even failing that, you're the most powerful mage that I know and trust. She -"

He breaks off and swallows heavily.

"She needs help, Yen, she needs training, and like fuck am I going to let anyone else try."

"I'd heard that there was Elder blood in her line," Yen whispers - she leans on Geralt heavily as they climb the final few stairs to the entryway, and he guides her through the hall towards the rooms that once served as the infirmary. "Is she really so powerful?"

"More so."

"Little wonder Nilfgaard are so desperate to claim her," she says, and then snorts. "Gods know they need all the help they can get, with Fringilla as their mage."

"They're powerful enough," Geralt says - there's the barest edge of a growl in his voice at the memory of weeks of travel. Weeks of constant vigilance, never once able to trust any of the people that offered them help because he'd seen soldiers poorly disguised as townspeople and knew from the scent of some of them that there were others less poorly disguised. Ciri had clung so close to his side she may as well have been attached there any time they ventured towards civilisation, tucked deep into the shadows of her hood. But as well as that -

"I heard about Sodden,” he mutters. “Heard what was left after. I didn’t know if you -”

Yennefer cuts a sharp look across at him, and her mouth twists.

“You learnt your lesson after last time," she says. It isn't unsympathetic. "No body, no proof."

"And I didn't think destiny was done with us just yet," he agrees, and carefully doesn't think of the sick twist that had pulled at his gut when the wind shifted over the woods and he caught the acrid smoke on the breeze. Burnt flesh as well as wood, hot enough that nothing caught in it could survive. Hot enough that there would be no body left to find.

There were few mages alive powerful enough to wrangle chaos in such a way, and all Geralt could do was cling to the hope that it had been Yen and not one of Nilfgaard's. She's right, after all. He'd learnt his lesson.

"But that was months ago," Eskel says, as much a bid to distract Lambert from his scowling as it is genuinely curious. "I saw what was left of the forest when I passed."

"That was you, I assume?" It isn't really a question - everything about it screamed Yennefer, but Geralt has to check. 

"Who else?" She asks with a toss of her hair that almost has her losing her footing. Geralt's hands tighten around her even as he pretends not to notice. "But of course, there were more soldiers following them, with more mages, and we were already weakened, even with Foltest's aid. We've been trying to track down the stragglers, but some of the magic they're using, is - I've never seen its like."

"We thought we'd managed to follow a couple of weakened mages running from a skirmish," Triss murmurs against Lambert's chest. At the very least, his grip on her is gentle. "But it was a trap. We were almost outmatched."

Yennefer snorts.

"We were taken by surprise," she corrects - and though she can be arrogant, Geralt also knows she is a brutal critic; of herself as much as anyone. She wouldn't downplay this. "We killed them, but more were coming, and Triss took the brunt of their attack. I didn't know where else would be safe enough to recover - I didn't have it in me to portal twice if they found us again. And - besides. Triss is the healer, not me."

There's frustration wrinkling the skin at the corners of her eyes, even as Geralt guides her to sit on one of the narrow beds in the old infirmary. She blinks and glances around the room, as though she hadn't noticed that they'd arrived. Maybe she hadn't. Even now, she sways a little in place.

Vesemir looks at them both critically, and then turns accusatory eyes on Geralt. He can feel tension and shame coiling around his lungs and squeezing his breath from him - he's never grown out of the childish urge to please his teacher. 

Perhaps it had been foolish of him to reveal Kaer Morhen’s location to Yennefer, but he doesn’t regret it. Can’t regret it, now.

"What happened?" Vesemir asks, and begins checking Triss over. Although he has no magic beyond his signs, he is the oldest and most experienced of them. There are few wounds he hasn’t seen in his time, even those of a magical nature - besides, Geralt thinks, Triss herself is a healer. He has no doubt she won’t be shy about correcting him if need be.

“Their last spell drained me, that’s all,” Triss says, and tries to wave a hand airily. It shakes so much that even Lambert looks disconcerted. “I’ll be fine, I just need rest.”

Yen scoffs.

“What she means is, Nilfgaard's got its hands on some pissant mages that wouldn't be able to cast so much as a glamour without a blood sacrifice, which they unfortunately aren't shy of," she says. To Geralt's ear, she sounds almost as scared as she does disdainful. “And Triss thought it would be wise to kill the last mage before he had a chance to complete his casting.”

Triss winces a little, though Geralt isn’t sure if it’s Yen’s words or Vesemir’s rough hands as he tilts her head carefully one way then the other.

He also winces, but only because he's had enough lectures from Yen over the years to know what a monumentally stupid - or perhaps brave - thing it is she did.

"Sounds like a good thing to me," Lambert mutters, folding his arms and furrowing his brow. Once, Geralt would have agreed with him - even now, he isn't sorry that the mage is dead. Any feelings of pity he might have had for the man are easily quashed as he thinks of what he had been trying to do. But the anxiety that burrows and settles beneath his ribs isn't so easily assuaged.

“It would’ve been, if the spell hadn’t been finished,” Triss says, and watches Vesemir closely as he sets about brewing a restorative and a tonic for dreamless sleep. “But I was too slow, he’d already shaped the chaos - so when I killed him the chaos hadn't been cast, and with no tether at all -”

“We were lucky the rebound alone didn’t kill us, never mind what might have happened if the spell had held together and taken effect,” Yen finishes, casting a sharply concerned look at Triss when she sips from the cup Vesemir hands her and immediately begins coughing. Geralt tips his head to one side to listen; her lungs sound fine, and from the face she pulls, the problem is more to do with the fact that most witchers don't take flavour into consideration when brewing potions. Decades in a royal court with all the luxuries afforded to her position there couldn't have possibly prepared Triss for Vesemir's concoctions. She can consider herself lucky that he knows enough to make something that's safe for a human to drink; Geralt doesn't.

"Right, I take it back, that was stupid as all fuck," Lambert grumbles, and then grunts as Eskel drives an elbow into his gut. _"What?"_

Geralt shoots a narrow-eyed look at his brothers. “Killing a mage that’s trying to kill you should be the smart as all fuck thing to do -” _the lesser of two evils_ “- and shaping and casting the spell usually happen almost simultaneously, so it doesn’t matter. But a spell like that - Triss, how are you not dead?”

Triss wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, but she at least looks more disgusted than pained.

“I would have been, if Yennefer hadn’t managed to undo enough of the spell to redirect some of the chaos into her portal,” she says, and chances a glance at Yen; Geralt recognises her expression, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. He’s never known Triss to be shy in anything, but if there was anyone who might be able to inspire it in her, it would be Yen. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“And if you’re lucky, you never will again,” Yen says flatly; but then she stretches her hand across the gap between their beds, to clasp Triss’s fingers briefly. 

Geralt manages to school his features before either of them notice the shock there, but it’s a near thing. He shifts his weight back, lets Yennefer have her space and awkwardly averts his eyes. That she is letting them see her even this gentle is astounding; he tries not to call attention to it, instead glancing between Eskel and the door. He can’t hear Jaskier or Ciri at all, and he’s helpless against the way adrenaline begins to creep through his veins again - against the widening of his pupils and the way his feet begin to restlessly shift, against every instinct that tells him the walls are closing in and he needs to move, needs to get _out._

Eskel sees it - Lambert too, but it is Eskel that settles a steady hand on his forearm and presses their foreheads together for an instant, until Geralt can untwist his thoughts long enough to drag in a rattling breath.

“Go on,” he mutters, and shoots Lambert a scathing look when he opens his mouth. He shuts it again mulishly. “We’ve got things handled, and you’re no good like this. I’ll keep Lambert in line.”

Another breath, and Geralt can nod, can gather Eskel into a hug that is no less grateful for how brief it is. Watching them from the corner of her eye, Yen snorts at him.

“Yes, yes, go on,” she says with a careless flick of her fingers. If she weren’t so exhausted, Geralt knows it would have been accompanied by a brush of chaos, just enough to knock him from his feet. He offers her a smile in reply, too wide by half and with too many teeth on display to be truly friendly. “Off with you, we’ll be just fine without your dubious help. And do tell the princess that generally my first impressions aren’t so… sloppy.”

“I’m not sure Jaskier would agree,” Geralt says - he's impressed by how steady he sounds through the tightness lingering around his chest. 

When her eyes narrow, he turns swiftly to Triss and inclines his head in as courtly a manner as he knows how, before beating a hasty retreat.

Even outside, though, he finds himself moving faster, and faster, until he is almost running, straining his ears to listen for Jaskier’s voice, or Ciri’s rabbit-quick heart over the pounding of his own feet. He tries to follow their scents, but so much of it has seeped into the keep now that he can’t untangle the threads. He forces himself quiet, forces himself to think, and lets his feet carry him down the halls, until he stands with one hand laid flat against the door to his old room. 

_"Years pass by so quickly my darling -"_

On the other side, Ciri’s breaths are deep and even, catching just slightly in the back of her throat in the beginnings of a soft snore; and barely louder than a breath, Jaskier sings to her still.

_"Each makes you more precious to me -"_

It’s an old song, he thinks. Geralt recognises the tune, but he’s never heard the words before; though he couldn’t say if it’s because he’s never listened, or because Jaskier has never sung it for him.

_"Long may we grow close together, oh lily-white rose cling to me -"_

He can’t bring himself to listen now - but Jaskier continues crooning as he opens the door, even around the immediate tightness in his jaw that tells Geralt he knows he’s there.

 _“And how are the mages, dear witcher?_ ” He sings, keeping time and tune, and eyeing Geralt as he crosses the room to crouch before them. _“The princess has slept soundly on."_

“They’re fine,” Geralt says, smiling a little to himself as Jaskier hums. “Tired, and shaken, but they’ll recover. There won’t be anyone following, Jaskier, they made sure of that. How’s Ciri?” Jaskier sighs, finally interrupting his song, and although she shifts a little where she is curled on his lap, Ciri doesn’t wake. 

“She was so scared,” he murmurs. “Geralt, I could sme- she was so scared. I thought - she thought Nilfgaard had come for her, that they would take her away, and -”

“I know,” Geralt says softly. He brushes the backs of his fingers against Jaskier’s hand - lets him grab at them and squeeze. "But they didn't, and there's no way for Nilfgaard to make it past the wards, especially not with Yen and Triss here. Once they've recovered, they can even help strengthen the defences - Triss will be happy to, and I'm sure all we'll have to do is tell Yen it'll make Ciri feel better. There's nowhere safer for us to be, right now."

"That sounds awfully complacent for you, Geralt," Jaskier says - his forehead creases in thought for a moment. "You're sure? There's no other way for them to get to us here?"

There's an edge of fear to his voice and his scent, though he masks it well. Geralt presses his eyes shut; whether Jaskier knows it or not, he's already been witness to the fall of one keep of witchers. It shouldn't be surprising that this has left him so badly shaken.

"I'm sure. The only other way to us now is up the side of the mountain, and even if they find the trail, even _if_ they survive it, we'll know they're coming - Yen and Triss can portal us out, if we must."

“That’s what we thought about -” 

Jaskier stops. Just - stops, and Geralt’s breath stops right along with him. After a moment, he blinks back to himself and turns his face enough that Geralt can no longer read his expression.

His scent, though, is abruptly muddied by fear so thick that Geralt thinks he might choke on it.

After so many years, Geralt knows better than to try to ask what he had been about to say. Not that it matters - he knows what Jaskier must’ve thought, what he must’ve come so close to remembering. The spell doesn’t let him hold on to that moment, but neither does it do him the kindness of taking his fear from him.

“After Sodden, there are so few mages left,” Jaskier murmurs, as though that had been his thought all along. Geralt’s eyes drift open, and settle immediately on the furrowed line of Jaskier’s brow. “It didn’t seem possible that it could be Yen - that it could have been anyone other than Nilfgaard.” Ciri shifts in her sleep, pressing her face deeper into the blanket Jaskier had wrapped around her - as though even in slumber, the conversation is enough to drive her to hide.

Settling himself next to Jaskier, Geralt stares down at her for a long moment; listens to the slightest hitch in her breath, the flutter of her heart. She's so _small_ like this, he thinks desperately; the thought of her trapped here, with mages bearing down from all sides and knowing that there was no way out makes him sick.

He swallows heavily, and lets his head fall forward when Jaskier runs featherlight fingers across his hair.

“At least,” Geralt says, and then hesitates. Jaskier’s fingers trace patterns across his neck that feel almost like the diagrams of sword forms Vesemir had drilled into him. Or perhaps like musical notes - Jaskier’s next composition, written across his skin.

“At least?” He presses gently. Geralt’s next breath shakes.

“At least this time I would have been here,” he whispers - it’s an apology, a confession, a wish, a thousand things he’s never been able to say to Jaskier. Things he’s barely been able to admit to himself. “I wasn’t there, not when Kaer Morhen was sacked, not when - not when Gorthur Gvaed fell, I couldn’t… At least here I would’ve been able to -”

“Stop,” Jaskier says and Geralt does, so abruptly that it feels like the breath has been yanked from his chest. “Geralt, how can you, can you _say_ that? As though it was your fault you weren’t there, as though you didn’t try to -”

The fingers on Geralt’s neck freeze - he freezes too, muscles locked tight and jaw clenched so hard his teeth ache. Jaskier stumbles over his words, holds his breath, tries again, stumbles again, until eventually Geralt straightens his back and pulls him close. He can’t bear to hear him try to comfort Geralt, not about this.

He knows that it isn’t his fault, not truly, just as he knows that there will be a part of him that will never forgive himself for it. That he’d failed not once but _twice_ -

But there’s no way for him to explain that to Jaskier now, not without risking making him worse.

“Thank you,” he says instead, turning his face into Jaskier’s hair so that there’s no chance of him trying to read his thoughts on his face. Jaskier jerks a little in his hold, though he doesn’t try to pull away - after a moment, he curls in tighter, breath blowing warm across Geralt’s collarbone as he laughs once.

“For _what?”_ He asks - he makes no effort to disguise the bitterness in his voice. “I froze, Geralt, you saw, I was _useless,_ what good am I to y- what good am I if I just freeze every time I’m afraid, I can’t help anyone like that, I can’t protect -”

“You don’t have to,” Geralt says. He wonders if Jaskier can hear his heart, can feel the thrum of his blood just under the skin where he’s pressed close. “Jaskier, you don’t have to protect anyone. And you did help. None of us would have been any good to Ciri like that - you kept her calm enough to _sleep,_ kept her safe from her own fears. I couldn’t have done that, so thank you.” Jaskier snorts, but this time he offers no argument. Across his lap, Ciri stirs briefly, her brow pinching before it smooths again.

It had been Jaskier that had kept them all safe as they travelled together; Jaskier who played and sang and stole and cheated until they had enough to pay for a room and meals; Jaskier who kept watch for hours longer than agreed on the nights that Geralt could barely sit up straight from pain and exhaustion as his leg sapped the last of his reserves. It had been Jaskier who had cut Ciri’s hair short and passed her off as his cousin; Jaskier, who had drawn attention away from Geralt so smoothly that if he hadn’t already known all of his tricks, he may never have noticed.

He’d already done so much to protect them while Geralt was as good as helpless - but the words won’t come, and all he can do is clear his throat softly and listen to the faint sounds of an almost empty keep.

Geralt sits unmoving and waits until Jaskier’s breathing loses its wet edge before he stands and lifts Ciri carefully into his arms. She’s impossibly light still, bony and awkward in the way all children are, even when asleep - her head lolls against Geralt’s shoulder, and it takes a few tries to set her down on the bed proper without waking her. Each time her breathing changes or her heart picks up, Geralt stills, waits for her to settle, and lowers her a little more.

Silent and watchful, Jaskier stands by the side of the bed, tapping clever fingers against his thighs, the whisper of fabric almost deafening in the dusty room.

When she’s finally still, Geralt finds that he can’t let her go - one hand stays curled around her shoulder, while the other moves to cradle her head, thumb rubbing at the tense line between her brows that he has seen far too often. The keep is safe, he knows - likely the safest place on the Continent for her, even if it doesn’t feel that way tonight. He should be able to let her go, retreat to his own room and leave the door cracked open - if she needs him, he’ll hear her.

“Stay with her tonight,” Jaskier says, turning away from them to root through the deep chest for more furs. The fire will burn for a while yet, but Ciri gets far colder than either of them, and Geralt isn’t used to having to allow for that. “She’ll be glad to have you here when she wakes, I think. And I _know_ you’ll rest easier if she’s nearby.”

Lips pressed together, Geralt wonders how he can say that he hasn’t slept in this room since the first winter after losing Jaskier - that the walls hold echoes of drunken laughter, that there is still a dark stain on the rug from the one night he tried that first year that ended in him surrounded by the remnants of his smashed decoctions. That it has stood empty and silent in the decades since - that he’s afraid it will bring nightmares.

Or worse - that it will bring impossible dreams.

Jaskier’s hand brushes his arm; it’s a careful touch, light and questioning, just firm enough for Geralt to realise how much tension has seeped across his shoulders. He takes a moment to deliberately roll them back, and watches as Jaskier’s small smile turns wry.

"Still aching from the thrashing I gave you?" He asks. There's a strained note beneath the levity, but Geralt appreciates the change in subject.

“You’ll have to do better than that if you want me to really feel it,” Geralt replies - it’s a thoughtless thing, the sort of teasing flirtation that they used to trade back and forth at breakneck speed while Geralt twisted himself into knots wondering if Jaskier meant any of it at all or if it was simply fun. 

He knows the answer now, and it doesn’t _matter._

For a moment, Jaskier’s scent thickens - Geralt catches himself tilting his head back, trying to catch the last of it even as that familiar stink of misery floods the room and overtakes him again. It’s still so close, though, on the back of his tongue - if he shuts his eyes, he can see a fire burnt low, can hear the forest at night, can feel the cool autumn breeze. He can smell Jaskier as he was, Jaskier as he is, he can smell Jaskier’s -

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jaskier says, and his voice is still light, without any of the sorrow. Geralt’s eyes fly open and the crossroads are gone. Jaskier is here again, after all these years. Geralt should know better than to ask for more than that.

But…

“Stay with us.” It’s selfish. Gods, it’s stupid, and so selfish, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep in this room without Jaskier. Whatever his answer, Geralt will stay, of course, until Ciri wakes; but he knows he won’t sleep.

Jaskier startles. Wide-eyed, he turns to Geralt, who abruptly finds that he can’t hold Jaskier’s gaze. Instead, he watches Ciri breathe peacefully, for once utterly relaxed in sleep. Swallowing down the urge to take it back, to snap at Jaskier until he leaves them be, Geralt sits to tug off his boots and arrange the furs around Ciri so that he can tuck her under his arm without rucking any of her blankets up and leaving her cold.

Slowly, as though half asleep, Jaskier drifts towards them. He pulls off his own shoes and settles them next to Geralt's on the rug - he hesitates for so long that Geralt turns away, onto his side. Ciri snuffles against his chest and pushes closer, breath curling warm even through layers of wool and linen.

It should be uncomfortable - lying still, eyes shut and Ciri twitching occasionally in his arms while Jaskier looks on. Every hair on the back of his neck should be on end, he should be tense to the point of pain, he should be flooded with adrenaline until the room stinks with it; but it's Jaskier. Just Jaskier, and that's enough to calm the storm of Geralt's mind enough that by the time Jaskier finally crawls into bed behind him, he's almost asleep.

Within moments, he's asleep with Jaskier pressed warm against his back, as much a protection from the cold air of the keep as he is from the nightmares and the world outside their room.

  
  
  
  


He recognised Jaskier's footsteps easily, even on the unfamiliar terrain; he didn't turn around, but neither did he flinch as Jaskier settled himself on the rock, a burning line pressed against him from shoulder to hip.

They stared out over the mountains together for the space of a few breaths - the sun dipped low, but there was still enough light that Jaskier would be able to read his every thought as it crossed his face, should he only turn to look. Geralt lowered his head; felt the pull at his shoulders and realised how tightly he had been carrying them.

Jaskier heaved a sigh - he tilted his head just enough that his breath billowed against Geralt’s cheek, but still he kept his eyes trained on the horizon.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he murmured. His voice cracked, and when Geralt glanced at him, the corners of his mouth trembled. “There was nothing else we could have done.”

Perhaps Jaskier truly believed that - or perhaps he was offering the only comfort he could to Geralt. Right then, he didn’t trust himself enough to guess at what he might be thinking. There were still times that he thought he knew every breath that passed Jaskier’s lips; and others that he was utterly inscrutable. 

“Nothing _you_ could have done,” Geralt corrected gently. Jaskier had been on the other side of Yen, one hand clinging to the rail and the other to her shoulder - though in support, or to stop her flinging herself forward, Geralt couldn’t be sure. And, though he hated to think of it, he didn’t know that there was anything Jaskier could have done if he were anything other than a bard. None of their signs, their strength, Jaskier’s decoctions or Geralt’s mutations, none of them were worth a damn thing on that narrow path around the mountain. All that mattered was Geralt, clinging to the chain and too weak to pull them up. Too weak to do as Borch asked and let them go.

“And what if you had tried? If they had held on, and you had tried to pull them back?” Jaskier shook, a head-to-toe tremor that Geralt could feel everywhere they pressed together. “You would have been pulled over with them Geralt, and I - perhaps it makes me a terrible person, I don’t know, nor do I much care, but I would sooner have you sat with me, and safe, than -”

He stopped abruptly, teeth clicking together. There was still an edge of fear to his scent, hours later. Before he could talk himself out of it, Geralt wound a careful arm around his waist, and allowed Jaskier to tilt his head until it rested against his temple. 

“Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow? We could - could head to the coast. Get away for a while. I’m sure you could find monsters there - or mermaids, perhaps.”

Geralt let his eyes close.

“If that’s what you’d like,” he managed at last. It was all he could force past his frozen lips.

“I would, I think,” Jaskier said, his gaze turned towards the horizon and his voice almost as far away. He hesitated, and then let his head drop, just far enough to press a weak imitation of a laugh against Geralt’s neck. “Sounds like something Borch would say, doesn’t it? Life is too short.”

Geralt had already lived lifetimes beside Jaskier - but he was right. It was too short, would always be too short. There would always be the next hunt, until finally one would be his last, and still there wouldn’t be enough _time._

When he couldn’t sleep, he would listen to the steady, inhuman pace of Jaskier’s heart, and wonder what the bard would do, after. After Geralt took on a contract he couldn’t fulfill; after he hesitated a fraction of a second too long, waiting for a second blade that would never come; when he left his back exposed because he still, after so long, hadn’t grown accustomed to fighting alone. 

He wondered if Jaskier would remember some day, after Geralt was gone - if he would forgive him. If he would understand why Geralt had permitted himself such weakness, to let Jaskier follow him back out onto the Path after he spent so many years longing to leave it behind.

If he would remember the way Geralt’s love had looked, sounded, smelled, in all the ways the spell wouldn’t allow. If he would look back, at the years Geralt clung to him even as he urged Jaskier to leave, and see each moment with new eyes.

Mostly, though, Geralt tried not to think of it. He had asked Yennefer, once, if she would protect Jaskier should anything of the sort happen. Her only response had been to throw her drink over his head, and then push the rest of the half-empty demijohn over for him to finish. It was the closest to an answer he was ever likely to get, and he hadn’t asked again - but he knew all too well the way her mouth twisted in the split second before the vodka burnt his eyes.

When Jaskier spoke, his voice was muffled against the collar of Geralt’s shirt.

“Find what pleases you, while you can.”

Geralt’s heart lurched so violently that he flinched. Though Jaskier must have felt it - must have noticed how the grip at his waist turned almost vicious - he said nothing further, only smoothed his restless fingers over Geralt’s other hand. He traced scars, callouses, the blunt edge of Geralt’s nails, the fine hairs at his wrist, and the lines along his palm.

“Composing your next song?” His throat felt raw, as though he had swallowed sand.

“No, I’m just, uh - just trying to work out what pleases me.”

The words leapt unbidden to his lips. If he were a stronger man, a better man, a nobler man, he might have been able to cage them there.

“Can I help?”

The shake in Jaskier’s breath might have been surprise, or laughter, or a sob. It might have been so many things - but the awful silence, the terrible pause that followed only ever meant one thing. Geralt lifted his chin just far enough to rest his face against Jaskier’s hair; just enough to hide his expression.

"Dear witcher, you already do."

  
  
  
  


“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

Geralt scowls down at the book he’s been pretending to read for the past hour. He’d hoped that Yen wouldn’t think to look for him in what remains of the library, but clearly he’d underestimated her. She sweeps her skirts into her hands and arranges herself in the chair across from him. Even if he couldn’t feel the ripple of magic against his chest, he’d know that she’d conjured herself the pillows from his bed by the scent. 

“Geralt, look at me when I’m talking, would you? Its basic courtesy, and Melitele knows you never _used_ to have a problem staring at me.”

"Didn't think you'd want anyone but Triss staring, these days," Geralt grumbles, but he lifts his eyes nonetheless to meet her flat expression. One of her nails raps a quick beat against the table - he almost turns back to his book just to be contrary, and from the way her mouth flattens, she reads his intent all too clearly.

“Don’t try to be cute with me, I’m not so easily distracted as your dear Viper.”

“He isn’t my dear _anything_ anymore,” Geralt spits without thinking, and immediately wishes he could swallow his tongue. He chances a look at Yennefer's face, and hates himself for it - she wears an expression of such pity that nausea curls in his gut.

She clicks her tongue at him.

“I think you and I both know that’s not entirely true,” she says, and Geralt barely has time to frown at her before she continues, “at least, he doesn’t want it to be. I rather think he’d like to be your dear everything, if the way he keeps glaring at me is any indication.”

Yennefer can be cruel - when the fancy takes her, when she is aching and desperate not to show it, when she knows her upper hand is slipping from her grasp - but she knows better than to use this against him. He can't bear to let himself hope that she might be right; that she isn't just mocking him. 

But he knows that she wouldn't use Jaskier, not like that. Even now, she respects him too much for that, no matter how little she shows it.

“He glares at you?” Is what he says instead of asking her if she means it. She laughs once, sharp as a blade and a hundred times, a thousand times more deadly.

“Oh, incessantly,” she says, as though she has never been more entertained by anything in her life. It had taken years for the two of them to admit to anything more than irritation for one another, but Geralt knew even then that there was little Yennefer wouldn’t do for Jaskier’s sake. “Never when _you_ might notice, of course, and he’s started taking pains to keep Ciri from seeing it, too. It’s almost enough to make me nostalgic.”

They had always delighted in taunting one another, Geralt knew, and often took their barbed insults too far - but even at the beginning, when Jaskier had been rightfully wary of Yen, he’d never truly disliked her. He had claimed to despise her - to revile the very ground she set foot upon, as he had once hissed to Geralt, not realising that Geralt’s surface thoughts were always open to her.

She had found it hilarious; though not as funny as the sour expression on Jaskier’s face when she stole his voice for an hour. 

Geralt hadn’t seen much of her in the years after the sacking - just enough to know that her grief ran deep, far deeper than either of them would have expected. Whenever they met, the air between them was full of silences as rich as Jaskier’s laugh until it became a struggle to focus on anything else. It hadn’t been fair to her, Geralt knows - _he_ hadn’t been fair to her. And he had missed her, in the way they always missed each other; at times so fiercely that it stole his breath, and at times little more than a passing thought. The djinn hadn’t changed that, at least, even as Geralt found himself drawn back to her again and again. Their relationship may never return to the way it had once been, but at least she remains a part of his life; as a friend, as family, as something he’ll never be able to put a name to that he refuses to allow destiny to take the credit for.

Even without his memories, Jaskier had fallen into old habits with her with such ease that Geralt was almost envious. Perhaps it was simpler for Yen; she drifted in and out of their lives, she could leave the instant it got to be too much to see Jaskier with his brow furrowed over his notes, tongue between the tip of his teeth as it used to be when he focused on the old books Yen pretended she hadn’t sought out with them in mind.

Now she’s stuck in the keep with him - nowhere to escape to, no respite from the fraying edges of the spell that keep dragging pieces of Jaskier to just beneath the surface of his smile, only to press them back down so deep that Geralt could almost believe it’s nothing more than wishful thinking.

Or - no. Not wishful. This isn’t something he would ever wish for.

Geralt sighs, and rubs at his forehead briefly. 

“What are you doing here, Yen?” He asks. His voice is tired, weighed down by long nights of little sleep, tucked against Ciri’s side, or straining his ears to separate out the breaths he could hear echoing from everyone’s rooms. 

“I came to tell you that you’re a soft-hearted fool,” she says, and it’s enough to shock a laugh from him. There’s an air of satisfaction about her when he lifts his eyes to meet hers - but of course there is. She wouldn’t have pointed it out unless she was trying to get a reaction from him; after all, she’s made her opinions on the subject of his heart plenty clear over the years.

“You haven’t told him.” It isn’t a question - there’s no curiosity in her voice. Some judgement; but of course there is. 

Her violet eyes are sharp enough to leave him bleeding.

“Not about the spell,” Geralt agrees. His mind is as open to her as it ever was - better that he offers the information freely. He’s kept so few secrets from her over the years, and all of them have been devastating. “Not about who he - who he was.”

“So what _have_ you told him?” The words are quick, clipped, and even without the tone, even without her scent as a guide, he would feel her frustration and disappointment settling over him like a second skin. She’s not an easy person to read, but Geralt has had decades of practice.

“He knows about the place he held in my life,” Geralt says, faltering over the words. They still don’t come easily to him; he doesn’t have Jaskier’s talent for them, nor even Yennefer’s practiced wit. He’s never cared enough to learn how to make himself understood to anyone that didn’t already know him without words.

It isn’t often he regrets that.

“Just not that he was the one that held it,” Yen guesses, and the way he presses his lips to a thin line must be enough of an answer for her. She rolls her eyes to the ceiling, some forty feet above them; one foot bounces as she thinks, a strange habit for her to have kept. As though some part of her abhorred stillness, some part of her as restless now as it had been when she was a girl.

Geralt wonders if that restlessness is something Ciri will keep, too. 

“That’s somehow better _and_ worse than I was expecting,” she muses after a moment, before pinning him helplessly in place with her gaze. There aren’t many things that can leave a witcher feeling powerless, but Yen’s stare has always been a force to be reckoned with. “I haven’t examined it in any detail - Melitele knows he’d notice me rummaging around his mind in a heartbeat, and frankly that isn’t something I want to have to worry about - but even you must have realised that the spell is failing.”

Jaw locked, Geralt can’t do anything but watch her as she sits silently for a moment before slumping. She rakes a hand back through her hair, and flicks her fingers in a move that looks perfectly idle, though he knows summoning the sort of wine she prefers is no simple accomplishment.

Not wine, he realises after she takes a mouthful and grimaces at the burn. He inhales deeply, and feels his tongue curl at the bite of cheap Cidarian gutrot. She offers it to him, and he takes the bottle, though he can’t bring himself to drink.

_I don’t know what to do._

It isn’t a confession he knows how to make aloud. Not here, not now. Not to Yen, though there are few people he trusts more than her. He knows she’ll hear him, regardless. Knows she’ll hear his terror that he’s already made the wrong choice in letting this go on as long as it has - terror that it never mattered what he did or didn’t do. That it’s still too late.

Maybe, at the end of this, he’ll lose Jaskier. Maybe he’ll even be able to find a way to live with that, if he knows the bard is somewhere, alive and hating Geralt for all that he’s done. For all the years he’s lied to him, kept silent as Jaskier followed him, again and again and _again_.

Yen sighs and pushes herself to her feet, stepping close enough to cradle his face in her hands. He allows his head to rest heavily in her palms, lets her take the weight of it for a moment. Her fingertips press briefly against the sides of his head, a burst of pain there and gone so quickly that he might have thought he’d imagined it, had she been anyone other than Yen.

“I can’t choose for you,” she says. Her voice is soft, but it isn’t gentle. Once, he wouldn’t have thought her capable of either; he knows better now. “And Geralt, you know that you can’t choose for him; he needs to know. He needs to be able to decide for himself.”

Geralt scoffs.

“He already has, Yen - or have _you_ forgotten? He made his decision decades ago.”

He feels her shift before him, hears the rustle of her dress as she curls over him, until her forehead touches the crown of his head; so light that she could be a trick of the shadows.

“And now he’ll have to choose again,” she says. “Whether you tell him or not, the spell will keep unravelling if we do nothing. It’s his mind that will suffer, Geralt, his life in danger. He deserves to know that much, at least.”

She’s right - he knows that she’s right. He’s known that it would come to this for a long time. He should be grateful that she and Triss are here, at least; that he isn’t trying to cope with this alone, ignorant and lost, and without any true magic of his own.

But -

“Not yet,” he whispers. Her disapproval could close his throat, if he let it. “Please, Yen, please - not until the mountain is passable again, not until he can leave if he wants. I don’t want… I can’t trap him here with us. With me.”

“We could portal him down, if it comes to that,” she says, and even before she’s finished, he’s shaking his head.

“He should be able to make his own way down, if he chooses,” he says. It's a weak argument, but she allows it without retaliation. 

Yen is gentle with him as he counts his breathing, matching it to the beat of her heart. One of his hands comes to rest at the end of her ribcage, to feel the movement of her sigh. There was a time he might have tried to tempt her to his bed, to try to block out the fear and the grief that clings to them both; but those days are long behind them, and he knows that anything they did together now would be nothing more than a regret. 

“You’re making excuses,” she says at last, when he feels settled back into his own skin. “But I know you, you thrice-damned fool of a witcher. You aren’t doing either of you any favours by dragging this out."

There’s a catch at the back of her throat as she speaks, and Geralt knows that she remembers Borch’s words as well as he does. Waiting hadn’t helped her - it had only served to make the truth of the destiny they now shared harder to swallow. That everything she had sought for so long, had strived for, searched for, hurt for, killed for; all of it could be hers through Geralt’s careless wish.

Perhaps he would have told her what he had done to them sooner, were it not for the threads of destiny that also bound him to Ciri - or perhaps not. Perhaps he was exactly as much of a coward as she had believed him to be.

“Stop that,” she says, and draws back to meet his eyes. “I can’t stand you when you pity yourself like this, it gives me a headache.”

“Then don’t listen,” Geralt says, and smiles slightly at the stare she levels at him. “Or would you rather I go outside and pity myself far away from you?” She laughs abruptly - it’s enough to make that old warmth swell in his chest, at being able to startle the sound from her. There’s no mockery in it, no spite; he is reminded, suddenly and fiercely, of how much he had longed to love her.

“It would be an improvement, but I fear your thoughts would still be loud enough to make my ears ring.” The echoes of laughter are slow to fade from her voice; Geralt can almost bring himself to forget that she had been berating him not two minutes before. But then, it was always hard not to be swept away by Yen, who commanded attention as easily as a thunderclap.

He sighs, and presses into her hands briefly, before standing and stretching. His book lays open on the table, abandoned; he closes it to spare the spine, but makes no move to put it away. 

“I’ll go and find somewhere quiet to brood, shall I?” He asks, and it’s so close to something that Jaskier would say, too close; she doesn’t react to the flash of sorrow, but he knows that she’s noticed it.

“Or better yet, go find your child,” Yen says, and nudges him forward with a ripple of chaos that leaves him smiling as he walks away.

It isn’t their way to thank one another, but he lets his gratitude overwhelm him for a moment, and he knows that he isn’t imagining the swell of affection he gets in return.

  
  
  
  


The mountain air could almost feel familiar - the lingering early morning chill, the mist that still tried to cling to Geralt’s skin and hair. If he closed his eyes, it could almost be Kaer Morhen at the turn of the season, no longer so cold that his breath threatened to freeze in his throat. 

But even with his eyes shut, there was no mistaking the strange scents on the wind, no possible way he could miss the crackle of Villentretenmerth’s magic; now unrestrained, and so different to the wards of the keep. Nearby, he could hear Yen’s familiar heart, and just slightly further away, the shift of Jaskier’s weight as he watched them. Geralt tried to focus on the wind, on the scent of damp-earth-rock-leaves and the wild air over the mountains - anything other than the misery-fear-blood tang that coated all three of them.

Jaskier knew how to fight. Of course he did. He didn’t remember it - thought he knew only what Geralt had deigned to teach him - but he didn’t need to remember when there was a sword in his hand and someone attacking Geralt from behind.

Geralt had heard the man behind him, had struggled desperately to free his blade from the grip of the reaver’s sword catcher - he threw his weight forward, and let the human stumble back at the force of it. Distracted, the man’s grip had slackened enough that Geralt could heave his sword back with the notched blade still caught, but no longer in the reaver’s hands. He had started to turn, and known as he did that he would be a split second too slow. 

He hadn’t heard Jaskier’s footsteps - hadn’t seen him pull a sword from the hands of a dead reaver, hadn’t thought to listen for the way his heart raced. All Geralt knew was that there was a moment he was sure he would die, and then there was a familiar weight at his back and the stench of human blood so thick that he knew the man must be dead.

Time stopped - it tilted on its head and dragged Geralt along with it, and when he turned, for a moment, he saw light armour and a dagger-sharp grin before it started moving as it should again. Jaskier looked so much the same. There was blood on his face, and sweat in his hair, and fury in his eyes.

He was - as much now as he was then - the most beautiful thing Geralt had ever seen.

There had been no time; still the reavers came for them, and Geralt slipped his feet into the spaces left by Jaskier without a thought. A brush against his side told him to duck, and the sudden prickle of magic over Jaskier’s skin was enough that, even without knowing why, he spun to the right just as Geralt twisted to cast aard over his shoulder. 

Geralt’s blood sang in his veins; the expression that twisted his face was too wild to be a smile and too full of riotous joy to be anything else. Jaskier’s scent surrounded him, overwhelmed him, drowned him - he had never found any joy in killing humans, but there was a satisfaction to be had in every clean cut of Jaskier’s sword, in the easy way they shared their space, in Jaskier’s vicious taunts. He wanted to kiss the taste of violence from his mouth; wanted those sure hands strong in his hair.

Years later, decades later, and he could still remember the way Jaskier had tasted, the way he felt. The easy way he pushed and pulled against Geralt, _with_ Geralt.

Lost in his thoughts with memories tangling up his mind, the world had fallen away until a wave of Yennefer's magic had sent them both reeling back; and when they glanced around, it was clear to see that the other reavers were all dead or dying. The adrenaline was slow to fade, even as Yen rolled her eyes over them and led the way from the cave, back into the piercing daylight.

After long minutes in the sun with the roar of battle ringing in his ears, and the reek of death slowly fading from his clothes, Geralt still couldn't bring himself to relax.

Borch - Villentretenmerth - watched him roll his shoulders against the stiffness creeping up his neck with an inscrutable expression. Perhaps it was pity - or amusement, or confusion. His scent no longer mimicked a human, and Geralt didn't know it well enough to be able to separate out the different notes of emotion.

Yen, though - her scent he knew in his sleep, her scent he would recognise always, no matter how much pain and anger stifled it. And there was so much pain, so much anger that it rolled from her in waves; she was a force like the tide, unstoppable and deadly to stand in the face of.

There were no miracles to be found in the corpse of a dragon; Geralt knew it, and he was sure that Yennefer did too. Hope was an insidious thing, though, and to have come so close only to find that she had never had a chance at all must have been more painful than Geralt could imagine for her. He hadn’t known her as a girl - hadn’t known her before she Ascended, but looking at her then, he thought he could see the echoes of a youth she had never managed to shake.

 _I want to be important to someone,_ she had said, and in the face of that girl he had never known, Geralt thought he saw what she didn’t say. _I want to mean more to someone than anyone else._

Geralt cared about her, loved her even; but that was something he had never been able to offer her, and Yennefer didn’t care to accept anything less. Nor would he have ever asked her to.

Not that it mattered, it seemed. With a hastily worded wish and a thoughtless moment of desperation, he had bound them together in a way neither of them had ever wanted to be bound. Jaskier liked to speak at length on the subject of destiny - it was a favourite topic of poems and songs and great rambling epics, after all, and so he considered himself something of an expert on it. Destiny, if he were to be believed, was a song in which none of the musicians could hear one another, the singer didn't know the words, and the only audience were future generations and any gods that might care to watch the chaos unfold.

Geralt had a simpler view, he felt. Destiny was the trap you didn't see around your leg until after it was sprung.

It had sprung now - clamped its jaws tight and pinned him in place as Yen's magic simmered in the air between them. They weren’t the people they had once been, and she wouldn’t rip them both to shreds in her attempts to tear herself free of him, but she would _want_ to. Geralt could understand that, could respect that, and yet he still felt his own temper surge to answer hers. Whatever else he may have done, however he had wronged her, he had saved her life.

Had their places been reversed, Geralt knew that there were few lengths she wouldn’t go to to keep him alive, no matter how terrible. He also knew that that didn’t matter - this was just another thing that had been chosen for her, and in a matter of moments Geralt had turned into another person that had taken that decision from her.

As she stormed away from him, anger barely enough to mask her hurt, Borch turned to look at him with eyes that he might have called sympathetic.

"A painful truth is no more or less the truth than any other, and still needs to be heard." Perhaps he could hear the fury that rattled against Geralt's bones, or perhaps some part of him still lingered in Geralt's mind, because his voice gentled. "I'm only trying to spare you a great deal of hurt, Sir Witcher."

Teeth bared and skin still prickling with the memory of chaos, Geralt could only snarl his frustration at the dragon perched so serenely on the rocks.

"You said you wanted to show me what I was missing, not take what little I have left from me!"

"Then let me show you." There was a sharpness to his voice that matched the sudden points of his teeth as he allowed the glamour to shift, just barely. “You seem to think that what you’re missing is right in front of you; but it’s still out there, and you are still here, choosing to do nothing - tell me, how well has that worked for you before? There are decisions that will have to be made, Geralt of Rivia, no matter how ill you like them.”

“And how is that any different from any of the decisions I’ve had to make so far?”

Borch’s eyes flashed, fire-bright.

“Not all of them will be yours,” he said, and pushed himself slowly to his feet. “However much you try to burden yourself with them. Perhaps it is time for you to start considering the things you can change; and the things that are not lost to you.

“I do wish you all the best, Sir Witcher, in finding what it is you’re missing.”

  
  
  
  
  


And later, Geralt would look back, and he would wonder.

  
  
  
  
  


Geralt follows the traces of Jaskier’s scent through the dim hallways, brow furrowing as he realises where he’s being led. Although Triss has settled herself happily into the old laboratory - clearing out the broken equipment that none of the Wolves had been able to bring themselves to touch, too much of that boyhood fear of the trials stilling their hands - he can’t think of any reason Jaskier would be there.

As he approaches, he slows his pace and strains his ears - Jaskier is easy to distinguish, his steps barely audible even in the echoing stone keep. His breath comes in strange huffs that it takes Geralt a moment to place as suppressed laughter. It’s enough to calm Geralt’s mind at least a little, even when he catches Ciri’s scent - older, fading - beneath Jaskier’s. He rounds the last corner, and Jaskier’s head snaps up, one finger already pressed to a brilliant grin.

Despite himself, Geralt finds that he can’t control his answering smile, and he is reeled helplessly in when Jaskier beckons him close. Jaskier smothers another laugh against Geralt’s shoulder, as warm and familiar as an evening fire.

Tilting his head, Geralt can hear echoed giggles on the other side of the door. He tries to frown at Jaskier, and finds that he can barely press his lips together. Even from where he’s stood, Ciri’s joy is a physical thing that lifts the hairs on the back of his neck and sends his heart thrumming.

Jaskier makes a _go on_ gesture with one hand, the other still holding Geralt’s arm, thumb rubbing small circles in time with Geralt’s pulse. He’s grinning as he clears his throat.

“Oh, Geralt, thank Melitele, I was just going to come and get you! Have you seen Ciri at all today?” His voice isn’t a great deal louder than it is normally - although that is still plenty loud enough - but it carries well; clear and sharp, crisp over each syllable. It must be something he’s learnt as a bard, Geralt realises; while always the more talkative of the two of them, he’d spent so much of his time and efforts doing everything he could to avoid notice as a witcher.

Geralt raises a brow, and must hesitate a moment too long - Jaskier shakes his arm firmly just as Ciri giggles again, echoed by Triss’ gentle laughter. 

At least she isn’t in there unsupervised he thinks, before glancing at Jaskier’s bright eyes and realising that he never would have been so calm about Ciri being in the lab if she weren’t being looked after. Jaskier’s about as protective of her as Geralt.

“Not since breakfast,” Geralt tries; it comes out a little stilted, but the mirth in Jaskier’s face is enough to push him on to say, “I thought she was meant to be helping Lambert with the bread?”

Jaskier snorts; in a moment of impulsive cheek Geralt shushes him, which earns him a playful swat to the ribs.

“She was, but the tyke ran off as soon as the dough was in cooking, and now we just can’t seem to find her anywhere! Geralt, dear, surely you must have some idea of where she might be!”

There’s a mischief in Jaskier’s eyes that Geralt recognises well. It’s been years - decades - since they were both here in the keep, but Geralt finds himself falling into the old dance as though they’d never left. As one they edge towards the door, eyes locked on each other, and Geralt can almost believe that it’s Aubry, or Gweld, or even Lambert hiding behind the door. More than once Rennes had accused them of teaching the apprentices bad habits - a Wolf couldn’t afford to be anything less than composed when out on the Path, he’d said, as though he’d left the keep for longer than a day in over a century. Jaskier had flashed him a sharp toothed grin each time and replied that it was good for training reflexes, and sharpening their senses.

It’ll do Ciri good, he thinks, to play the old games - and it’ll do him good as well.

Geralt hums as though considering his answer, even as Jaskier’s free hand comes up to rest against the door. 

“Well, maybe she went to find Yen in the library?” As he speaks, Geralt holds up three fingers. He never used to bother - Jaskier could read his intent in the barest shift of his weight and the changes in his scent. Now, either the spell won’t allow him to notice, or it will stall him long enough to throw their whole game off. Geralt swallows past the lump in his throat, ignores the slight tilt of Jaskier’s head, and puts down one finger.

The light in Jaskier’s eyes flares again, the look of something like concern snuffed out in an instant.

“You’re right, I didn’t even think to look there,” Jaskier says as Geralt puts down a second finger. He listens to the shuffle of feet on the other side of the door, trying to place where Ciri will be in the room. He can hear the clink of glass as Triss sorts through the equipment that survived the sacking, and the whisper of Ciri’s soft boots - at least it sounds like she’s keeping away from the old workbenches. 

“In that case, I suppose we’d best - aha!”

The door crashes open a half second before Geralt puts the final finger down, and they fly through the door together to Triss’s smothered laughter and Ciri’s indignant yell. Geralt reaches her first, and is so delighted by the way she immediately tries to duck and roll away from his grasp that he lets her get away with it. She is allowed to luxuriate in her victory for a scant moment before Jaskier sweeps her up and throws her into the air, catching her and spinning in one easy movement. 

Geralt is sure there will come a time - possibly much sooner than he is ready for - that Ciri will begin to protest the treatment, claiming that it’s too childish. For now, it’s still something of a novelty to her; the closest she had come to anything like it was with Eist, and she had confided in Jaskier that such things had stopped several years ago after he had injured his shoulder.

All of the Wolves - and Jaskier - are more than happy to indulge her.

“Don’t go breaking the bard now, rascal,” he calls as Ciri squirms and kicks her legs and laughs so hard she can barely breathe.

"And don't break the rascal, bard," Triss adds, wiping her hands on a scrap of cloth and coming to stand beside Geralt, close enough to nudge his arm with her shoulder. Her hair is pulled away from her face, and her sleeves are pushed back to her elbows to display a surprising number of scars along her hands and arms. But then, Geralt supposes, potions are a dangerous business; even those meant for healing. He doesn't know why she didn't simply heal the cuts and burns when they were still new, nor does he know how to ask.

Geralt stands quietly with her for a moment, both of them watching Ciri drag Jaskier around the room to show him the progress they have made in cleaning out the lab. It isn’t a task any of the Wolves have ever been willing to take on - even now, decades after the sacking, Geralt imagines he can still smell the cloying potions, thick with chaos and mutagens both. He can’t, of course, he knows he can’t - the smells have long since been worn away by time and carried off on the draughts that race through the keep. Despite that, though, he finds himself turning his face towards Triss to focus instead on her scent. The corner of her mouth twitches into a smile, like she knows exactly what it is he’s doing.

"Been giving lessons?" He asks. It comes out a little gruff, a little awkward; he still feels a touch wrong-footed as though, despite everything, he had expected to burst through the door to find a room of his brothers ready to tackle him back to the floor.

The keep feels more alive than it has in years, even as it crumbles around them. _Geralt_ feels more alive than he has in years - and watching Jaskier's smile, he thinks he may not be the only one.

His brothers, too, have been different. Eskel watches them with a look in his eye of such warmth and concern that it may as well be a physical weight. Lambert moves differently now - his steps are lighter and faster, his smiles more ready at the corner of his lips. His eyes are bright as he ruthlessly cuts into Jaskier's singing and playing, though his scent is sweeter and softer than Geralt has ever known it.

Even Vesemir sits quietly in the corner of the kitchen while Jaskier and Geralt share meal duties, humming old tunes softly to himself while Jaskier whistles. 

Geralt had never really been sure what the old swordmaster thought of the Viper in their midst before the sacking - and after, he knew that Vesemir would never say a word against Jaskier, if only to spare Geralt from being reminded of him. Now his manner has a lightness to it; a fondness that Geralt would never have expected to see for anyone that hadn’t been one of his trainees.

Triss laughs softly, and Geralt takes a moment to bask in the sound - in the way it rings around the room, the faint reverberations on the glass. The room hadn’t been built for laughter, but hers suits it well.

“Only the basics,” she says. “All the things she’ll need to know before she starts trying to brew anything of her own. It’s a little different to the way Aretuza would have taught her, but…”

“Less likely to kill her?” Geralt guesses. If Yen’s stories are anything to go by, the teaching methods at Aretuza are more similar to those of Kaer Morhen than he likes to dwell on. He can’t imagine the girls there were taught anything at all before being asked to start making potions, in much the same way the young witchers were asked to start preparing their own decoctions long before their mutations, with only guesswork and painful experience to tell them which were safe to handle.

True, the lessons were never forgotten; nor were the boys that didn’t learn fast enough.

“Just so,” Triss agrees, and stifles a laugh as Jaskier pretends to drop a couple of empty phials; he catches and spins them around his clever hands a few times, always keeping them just out of Ciri’s reach with ease. 

Geralt can feel Triss’ eyes on him, but he doesn’t turn to meet her gaze. He can’t be sure of the emotion on his face, but he knows that she will see through him in a heartbeat if he only lets her. After a moment, he hears her blow out a hard breath - not another laugh, but not quite a sigh either.

“You’re good with her. Good _for_ her.” Her voice is softer now, just between the two of them. Geralt grunts - it isn’t in disbelief, exactly, though he couldn’t say for certain what else it could be. Good for Ciri? Being the best available choice isn’t the same as being _good._ He does the best he can for her because he doesn’t know what else _to_ do - he’s made so many mistakes in his long life, not least of which was never going back for her until it was almost too late. The least he can offer her now is some measure of peace, of safety, of happiness; however brief.

Geralt is a witcher - he has his brothers, he has a few friends scattered across the continent, he ~~had~~ has Jaskier. He doesn’t know what to do with a child.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Triss says, and she sounds amused. “But the only person you’re fooling is yourself. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you go above and beyond for a lost princess, remember.”

“Hm,” Geralt says, and then, “how is she? Still with Nenneke?”

His shoulder aches at the thought of the girl - stinking of filth and fear, snarling and sobbing with each breath, her damaged throat no longer capable of the shrieks she had made all her life. For a moment, he tries to picture her alongside Ciri, as a child that had been allowed to grow up untouched by curses and hatred.

“Not for several years now.” Triss must see the alarm in his gaze - the sour guilt at the thought of what he had done to her had always stopped him from seeking her out, or even listening to Jaskier’s tales of Temeria’s court - because she hurries to reassure him. “Just because time barely touches us, doesn’t mean it’s so for the rest of the continent. She’s a grown woman now, at court alongside her father; I don’t know that she’ll be named heir when Foltest dies, but she’s well. Safe.”

It’s a greater relief to hear than Geralt could have imagined. 

“Thank you,” he says, and hopes that she can hear everything he doesn’t know how to say. That he would be dead without her, and Adda too. That even if they had both survived, he wouldn’t have known how to help the child, wouldn’t have been able to dedicate himself to her the way he is learning to for Ciri. 

Triss hums to herself.

"She asks after you, you know; from time to time."

"I'm surprised she remembers me." 

He had hoped that she wouldn't - it would have been a blessing for her memory of that night to be stolen away by the transformation. The things she must have seen, the things she must remember doing… he had hoped that she would be spared the knowledge of exactly what she had been.

“For a while, I think you were the _only_ thing she remembered,” Triss says. They watch Ciri try to pull herself up to Jaskier’s shoulders using a thankfully empty workbench as a boost; he stands perfectly steady, feet planted and hair falling in his eyes as she is forced to grab a handful for balance.

Geralt snorts.

“Shitty luck, that,” he says, and lets Triss push him off balance as she laughs.

“I wouldn’t say _that.”_

“I would.”

“Of course you would, but you’d be wrong. She remembered that you were gentle. She remembered that you’d helped her. It was the first kindness she’d been shown Geralt; that isn’t something to be taken lightly.” Geralt clears his throat, and pretends not to notice the way Jaskier and Ciri have stilled. Jaskier knows the story already - and if Jaskier knows it, then surely Ciri must as well.

“Well. Hopefully she has a few better memories to replace it, now."

Triss is silent for a few moments before she turns to watch him cautiously. Geralt suffers this for only a couple of seconds before grunting,

"What?"

"Is that it? All you have to say on the matter?"

He frowns. "What else should I say?"

Head tipped to one side, Triss begins to say something, only to hesitate. She glances at Jaskier and Ciri, who seem to have lost interest in them again, before visibly steeling herself.

"It's only, you were very interested in how memory might be affected by magic then," she says; Geralt flinches almost imperceptibly, and knows from the way her eyes dart across his face that she didn't miss it. "So I'm a little surprised that now you seem to care not at all about it."

"I found the answer I was looking for," Geralt manages from between clenched teeth. Triss couldn't have known then, without examining the spell, just how dangerous it might have been to break, and Geralt had been… unwilling to press the matter. She had admitted that it wasn't her area of expertise beyond healing the damage wrought on the mind by a poorly-cast spell, and by the time they met again, Geralt had already heard all he needed from Yen.

After a moment of quiet, she places a careful hand on his arm.

"Did you?" She asks, voice soft with sorrow and sympathy. He nods jerkily, no longer feeling completely in control of his own movement.

"It wasn't the answer I wanted, but I had to hear it."

He's saved from the understanding he can see beginning to bloom on her features by Ciri finally snatching her prize from Jaskier's lax fingers and bounding triumphantly over. Geralt lifts an arm for her to tuck herself under, and smiles gently at the way she presses her face into his shoulder and begins mumbling.

Triss hides a smile behind her hand.

"I can't hear you when you've got a mouthful of shirt, rascal," he lies.

"Ugh, _gross_ Geralt, why would I want a mouthful of your sweaty shirt?" She grumbles; but he can feel the way she smiles when he ducks his head to press a kiss to her hair.

"I'm sure there are people out there that would pay handsomely for the privilege," Jaskier says, humour leaving his voice unsteady - at Ciri's disgusted shriek he breaks into full-bellied laughter, doubled over with his hands on his knees.

Geralt watches him, heart in his throat, the years stripped away in the blink of an eye. He used to laugh like that with Gweld and Lambert when the three of them banded together to make Geralt's life hell.

"He's not wrong, you know," Triss says, and almost manages to hold her nerve in the face of Ciri's betrayed look; but after a moment she crumbles and offers a conspiratorial smile. "There are people that think different parts of a witcher have healing properties. Apparently, if you burn witcher hair it'll cure lice."

"I'd always heard that it _gave_ you lice," Geralt muses, and Triss just shrugs as though there's no difference one way or the other. In a way, there isn't - neither is true.

"And what is witcher sweat supposed to do?" Ciri asks suspiciously; when she thinks Geralt isn't watching, she sticks her tongue out and tries to stare cross-eyed at it. It's a bit late to be worrying about it now, Geralt thinks with some amusement, given how tightly she'd curled against him each night as they travelled, even when fever wracked his frame and left him almost insensate.

"Depends on who you ask," Triss says. "I've heard that it'll ward off werewolves, that it's poisonous enough to kill three men, that it can make you invulnerable, that it was used as part of the mutagens to make new witchers -"

The furrow in Ciri's brow has only deepened as the list went on, but it's here that she interrupts.

"Well that doesn't make sense, how would they have made the first witchers if you needed to already have a witcher to make the mutagens?"

"Of course it doesn't make sense, it's a crock of shit," Geralt tells her, rolling his eyes at Triss, who looks utterly unrepentant. "All of it. Our hair is just hair, our sweat is just sweat, and the formula for the mutagens has been lost since the sackings so anyone who says they know what was in it is lying."

"For now, perhaps," Triss says, pushing her sleeves back even further in what Geralt can only describe as a nervous fidget. "But I think with enough time studying what's left here, as well as all of you, I might be able to -"

The sound of breaking glass is almost lost beneath the whip-crack of Jaskier's voice.

"No. _No!"_

Geralt glances up and stills when he catches sight of him - bloodless lips, wild eyes, terror barely held together with fury. Ciri shifts against his side, and without thinking, he pushes her behind him. He trusts Jaskier with her implicitly, but he doesn't think that Jaskier would even recognise her now. 

His eyes are fixed on Triss, who stands tall under the force of his glare. 

There's so little warning that Geralt almost misses it - Jaskier's weight shifts, and Geralt recognises the set of his feet with barely enough time to throw himself forward to catch the shard of glass aimed at Triss.

Blood drips down his wrist - his and Jaskier's, and Geralt thinks he might gag at the scent of it, at the uncomprehending fear in Jaskier's eyes. Behind him, he can hear Ciri's whimpers, though they sound as though they are a mile away, and Triss' chaos crackles with alarm. He throws the glass aside, and for the barest moment, Jaskier's eyes track the movement.

It's a foolish mistake, one that he would've known better than to make, had he been thinking straight at all.

On even footing Geralt can't match Jaskier for speed, he knows; but he doesn't have to. The split second of distraction is enough for Geralt to slip close, under the guard that had lifted without conscious thought. His hands flit to his sides on instinct, where swords once rested; but even when they close on nothing but air, Jaskier isn't shaken from whatever has suddenly gripped him.

The foot that hooks around his ankle is expected, as is the lightning-fast elbow aimed at his unprotected stomach. Geralt knows to brace himself for both, and though he loses his breath, he doesn't lose his grip on Jaskier's shoulders. From the corner of his eye, he sees a flicker of movement and it is only long familiarity with Jaskier's fighting style that has him ignoring it and shifting to defend his other side from the blow.

There isn't enough breath left in him to gasp Jaskier's name, and whatever sound he does manage to make isn't enough to turn Jaskier's attention back to him. He's utterly focused on Triss, teeth bared and face twisted until he's almost unrecognisable. Guilt surges through Geralt’s chest where the air ought to be as he locks his arms around Jaskier and forces him to his knees. It isn’t an unbreakable hold, but Jaskier twists against with grip with none of the forethought of before, just an instinctive need to break free. He pants and strains, scrabbling desperately at whatever parts of Geralt he can reach.

Geralt grits his teeth and bears it. There’s salt on the air; he thinks Ciri may be crying, though he can’t turn to check.

“You can’t!” Jaskier gasps, and Geralt isn’t sure if he’s talking to Triss, or to him, or to someone that only Jaskier can see. “I didn’t - you -”

His voice breaks, and though he doesn’t relax, he finally tears his eyes from Triss to look at Geralt. Not knowing what else he can do, Geralt meets his gaze steadily, and dares let his hold loosen just enough for Jaskier to press a trembling hand to his cheek. The smell of blood thickens; hot metal and pain, and Geralt can feel it tacky against his skin. There’s still panic in Jaskier’s eyes, but his heart settles briefly as Geralt’s hand slips down to press against the wild flutter of the pulse at his throat. They are both still for a beat, before Jaskier surges forward to press his frantic mouth to Geralt’s.

It’s barely a kiss, barely more than a touch and a shared breath; yet Geralt finds himself pushing desperately closer through his confusion, hard enough to split his lip against Jaskier’s teeth, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to prove to himself that it’s real. Both of Jaskier’s hands smooth a path across his cheeks in a motion that would be soothing if not for the way they shake.

“Dear Wolf,” he mutters against the corner of his mouth, and then again into the seam of his lips. He draws back just far enough to stare at Geralt with an expression that is familiar only in the way it must feel as it twists his face. He watches Geralt like he’s sure he’s about to disappear, like he’s afraid he’ll never see him again.

It’s the same way Geralt has quietly watched him for years now - since Posada.

His eyes are clear, and bright, and so so blue, and Geralt can’t be sure if his heart has stopped or if it’s beating too fast now to count.

“Jaskier?” He rasps, the sound strangled by hope, by fear.

Jaskier blinks, and his brows furrow.

“I - Geralt I need to tell… We have to -”

His voice trails off even before his eyes roll back into his head, the gentle ripple of Triss’ chaos a barely-there change in the air.  
  
  


“Geralt, maybe we should head back,” Jaskier murmured, closer than Geralt had realised, closer than he had noticed, tangled in the mess of his thoughts and Borch’s words.

 _Head back_ , he said, as though there was anything waiting for them back down the trail apart from the ruins of a contract unfulfilled and the Path leading to the next. What about that could Geralt possibly change?

_No._

“Why are you still here, Jaskier?”

_Stop._

The words were his own - they fell from his mouth like blood, thick and painful, and left the taste of metal on his tongue. There was no magic he could blame for this, no will directing his voice other than his own.

Jaskier frowned at him; more confused than hurt, still, but Geralt knew that would change. 

Confusion to pain to anger - a pattern repeated again and again. Visenna, Renfri, Yennefer; and perhaps Jaskier all those years ago, even as he loved Geralt, even as he made him happy. There must have been a reason he had erased every trace of Geralt so thoroughly with his memories of his past.

"What do you mean _why am I still here_? Just because we can't collect any reward now doesn't mean the journey was useless - it'll make for a beautiful poem, even if I can never have it published or recited, and -"

A beautiful poem indeed - audiences loved a tale of love and loss, would roar for more over a story of heartbreak. What would they make, Geralt wondered, of the White Wolf if they knew the truth of his tale. If they knew how fiercely he had lived, and how much he had lost. How many times his heart had been broken - at his own hand, and the hands of others.

It was a song that Jaskier would never sing; a story he may never remember.

_Don’t._

“ _No,”_ Geralt hissed, and didn’t allow himself to think about the way Jaskier’s face froze, the way it twisted; the hurt in his eyes. He should’ve known by then, the sort of man Geralt was. Should’ve known better than to trust him to do the right thing, say the right thing, even if he didn’t remember why.

_Don’t say it -_

“Why are you _here,_ Jaskier? Why can’t you let me have _any_ peace?”

Was this what Borch meant? Was this the decision he would have Geralt make?

Jaskier’s eyes narrowed; he drew in a breath, squaring his shoulders as though preparing for the sort of head-on fight he had never preferred. Never, in all their years travelling together, had Jaskier fought fair when he had the choice.

“Don’t do that,” he snapped, stepping forward into Geralt’s space until the cloud of his scent and his worry was almost overpowering. It was so similar to his memory of it, and still never quite right. Without the poisons that clung to his fingers, the spice that lingered at his jaw, he sometimes smelled like another person altogether. 

In many ways he was; but still Geralt found himself leaning close, unable to stumble away.

_Don’t ask, just tell him you’re -_

“Don’t _what?”_

One hand shot up, almost quicker than thought, to twist in Geralt’s hair and hold him in place. It should have been enough to make him startle - should have set his heart racing and adrenaline shivering through his veins. He shouldn’t have slumped into the careful grip, shouldn’t have let his eyes fall shut. But it had been so long since he had reacted to Jaskier as though he were a threat; if he ever had at all.

“Don’t try to _run_ from me,” he said, serious and sharp. “I _know_ you, my dear, it won’t work on me.”

Geralt’s eyes flew open. Jaskier looked back at him, eyes unclouded by the haze of the spell.

_No, no, no, you -_

“ _Do_ you?”

Some of the certainty in Jaskier’s expression flaked away, and Geralt couldn’t be sure how much of it had been a mask all along. 

“If you know me so well, then tell me, _Jaskier_ -” the words burnt his lips until he was sure they would scar, but still he couldn’t stop them; the fear, the pain, the useless fucking grief that coiled itself deep in his throat finally hissing to the surface like acid “- why can't you just _go,_ why are you still fucking _haunting_ me?”

Jaskier’s hand slipped from his hair to his cheek where it rested for just a moment before he staggered back. He had never looked so much like the human bard he believed himself to be - never looked so little like the Viper he had been, like Geralt’s friend, his love, his _Dandelion._ Confusion swept across his face, chased by hurt, and an anger so soft that it could have been devastation.

There was no answer he could give; but Geralt had known there wouldn’t be. That there couldn’t be. Jaskier didn’t understand what Geralt asked of him, just as Geralt didn’t understand why he came back, time and again, to this life that he had once hated enough to destroy it completely. 

Geralt had bound Yennefer and the child to him, and yet it was Jaskier that returned to his side.

It was Jaskier that still had the choice to leave.

It was Geralt that chose to let him.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [by god still am](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23951494) by [ruffboi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruffboi/pseuds/ruffboi)




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